Devil in the Cradle
by LadyTigerFuyuko
Summary: Chapter 11 added! Dante's working with Lady like he promised. When life deals the pair of hunters a strange new hand and a new charge, will they be able to handle it and being closer to each other? DxL pairing. M for language and lime.
1. Chapter 1

**Fuyuko: Boom! Hahahahaha! Me have bazooka, me kill demons! Boom! More demons go boom with Kalina Ann! Pretty….**

**Dante: O.o You are one crazy bitch. And aren't you supposed to start this story or something equally lame?**

**Fuyuko: Story? What story? I'm only here to kill demons. Disclaimer-Bot does all the real work around here.**

**Disclaimer-Bot: It's no use talking to her right now. Please just accept that she does not own Devil May Cry or any of the characters in the series, such as Dante or Lady. Capcom has full rights to them. And now, enjoy this rather demented fanfiction.**

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle**

**&**

'_He promised to help me get rid of the demons, even though he's part one himself, so where the heck is he?'_ Lady, once known as Mary Arkham and then as simply a devil hunter, was put out. She'd purposely told him to be here, outside his office, at seven o'clock, an hour before she knew they needed to leave because she'd been trying to prevent his habitual absentee-ism. It seemed like everytime they had a mission together, he'd be gone for another engagement or he'd show up late. It was probably one of his more infuriating qualities, besides that cocky attitude he carried around with his holstered guns and red trenchcoat.

'_Honestly, what does that jerk take me for? It's not like demon-hunting is a job you can be late to, unless you don't care about civilian casualties. Stupid Dante. What a fuckup.'_

Of course, she could just go on without him, she didn't need him for this job, she'd just invited him along, mostly because she didn't trust herself with the situation. Lady could handle the demons they'd be facing on her own, no sweat, duck soup, yadda yadda, but it was the cultists involved that bothered her. She hated those kinds of people, they were so much like him, her vile father, that she wasn't sure she could stop herself from blowing them up rather than handing them over to the proper authorities. They'd obviously sacrificed innocents, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten the private hire from the local chief of police.

Times like this, she wished she'd never met the half-demon, since it meant cutting pay, wasting time, and putting up with him. Sometimes, she just up and left, knowing it wasn't worth it to wait around, especially when it seemed he'd show his unapologetic hide smirking and calling her babe in slurred tones and smelling of cheap perfume and liquor. Dante really could be an ass sometimes, and she just didn't feel like taking that crap right now. Hoisting Kalina Ann back onto her shoulder, Lady stepped away from the double doors to Devil May Cry, never bothering to see if the proprietor was inside. She could handle this mission much better on her own anyways, cultists be damned.

Well, damned wasn't really the right way to think of it, since they probably already were, if you believed what so many religious fanatics did, that associating with witchcraft and the power of devils only led one way. Most hunters, like herself, had long since stopped believing that any higher power cared about this little mudball or its inhabitants enough to promise them anything for so called good behavior, and the only thing left was that people made decisions that were good and bad, and some people's decisions just had nastier, more hellish consequences that other people chose to cleanup. Now if only certain half-demons would have chosen not to be late, her life would be a whole lot happier right now. Or maybe not, considering he'd have chosen to talk and flirt and generally keep up his reputation as her walking headache.

Such was the life of Lady the devil hunter, unknown to the evening news it no doubt would have been a feature on. The only things that came close to documenting her lifestyle were tabloids, and the real demons they occasionally did find out about were too weird or gruesome for even those nutjobs to want to report about. Normal people didn't find the macabre interesting, and normal people made the world go round, even if they didn't know it.

And the freaks like her and Dante made sure that the world of normal people kept spinning, because it wouldn't do to let it stop for some psycho's whim. Or to let demons devour its normal people alive and screaming. Better to have some be bizarre and keep normal safe than to be normal and have everyone be food, that was the way hunters thought. Besides, most of them had vendettas against their own minds for not letting them forget or dismiss the abnormal things that came under the cloak of night, and the bizarre lives they led were a sufficient punishment for those minds. Forced to relieve every scream and drop of blood all hunters lost their minds after a while, and then the only thing awaiting them was eternal blackness.

'_Speaking of eternal blackness, this has got to be the right address, since I seem to have prematurely entered that void.'_ This was not to say that she was dead, in fact she knew she was alive, since she could smell the rancid stench that could only be rotting flesh. However, a dark mist seemed to swirl overhead, an ominous and cliché signal of impending doom for all those under it. Unless you were carrying salvation in the form of a few hundred 9mm rounds, fifty .30-06mm rounds, about three dozen grenades, a dozen missiles lined with holy oil, five pistols, one rifle, a submachine gun, and five knives including Kalina Ann's grapple made of pure silver. Only a demon like the legendary dark knight could survive that kind of assault, and these run-of-the-mill cultists wouldn't have been able to call up anything close to that. She hoped not anyway.

Steeling herself and systematically checking over her weapons, Lady stepped through the heavy oak doors into the foyer of the enshrouded townhouse. Creepy fog never deterred a true devil hunter. Neither did the blood coated walls or the moans she could hear coming from a hall closet. Her red combat boots crunched slightly on the sandy flooring, a good sign to her that they'd only managed to call up a regular netherworld jailor, probably a Pride or Greed. Cautiously she slid up next to the closet door, clicking off the safety on her pistol, since the human in there was probably a cultist, and would jump her out of desperation if nothing else.

'_And if they attack me, then I'm not sparing them, not even for a larger reward.'_ Holding grudges and prejudices might be bad, but it hadn't failed to keep her alive.

Toeing open the door, Lady found herself presented with a half-dead man in a navy business suit, now turning purple with the blood pouring out of his split open torso. She pushed the door to again, not wanting to give the man mercy, but not wanting to finish murdering him in such a cold-blooded way. It was fairly obvious he'd been part of the ritual, even if she had no idea what he'd summoned with the inscription on the bloody and torn parchment next to him. Time to see if he was the only survivor anyway.

Stepping slowly through the hallway leading to the back of the home, Lady's ears told her she wasn't walking on sand anymore, which meant that either she'd passed the area used to summon or that the demon was hiding its tracks well. She doubted it was dead, the townhouse still carried that odd odor of sulfur and death that she'd been told by Dante followed a lot of summoned demons. Those that jumped out of portals on their own were usually much trickier according to him, something to do with being the bigger and smarter variety. Personally, she'd yet to meet a smart demon, and she definitely didn't believe the king of idiots when he told her that even he and his twin were geniuses when compared to humans.

'_Vergil, maybe, but Dante? Lord of the stupid? I doubt he's even on par with room temperature most of the time.'_ Snorting at the thought of Dante as a schoolboy, much less owning a doctorate, Lady entered what appeared to be a living room.

There was a grey leather couch, albeit a ripped in half one, more or less along one wall, two overly fancy Tiffany floor lamps on the sand and blood stained white shag carpet, one of which was broken off from it's post, and a TV. Apparently, even evil demon summoning cultists had time to be couch potatoes.

Thing was, the room was drenched in sand, and if she wasn't mistaken that was a Lust's mask hanging from the very sandy mantel. Well, really, it was speared over the mantel with something that looked like the broken post of the lamp. Which meant that someone, or something, had gotten there before her. And judging by the scene, it hadn't been entirely human either. Normal people didn't have the strength to break steel lamp posts.

Sighing to herself as she moved on, the dark-haired huntress began to wish she'd have brought Dante along. At least then she wouldn't be treading around like this, unsure if there was a bigger demon or not, and hating having to spend more time than necessary tracking her foe. If there was a bigger demon, the half-devil hunter would have spotted its energy immediately, and they could have gone on to looking for survivors uninterrupted or just left the cleanup to the police, gotten paid, and be taking a warm shower right now. Nix that thought. She could take a warm shower in her apartment, and he could do whatever it was he did after missions. Probably eat cold leftover pizza.

'_One day, I'm going to tell him how gross that is, and I am going to make him eat a proper meal with me. I mean, not like a date at a fancy restaurant or anything, maybe just drag his ass to a half-decent family diner.'_ Sheeze, here she was pondering introducing real food to a rude, cocky, and sex-happy half-devil she usually avoided like tuberculosis, when she was supposed to be tracking a much worse devil. Why did he always mess up her life? Probably some sick posthumous joke of her father.

Returning her focus to the living room, the red-booted hunter noted that the Lust's mask had been forcibly ripped from its body before being pinned to the wall. Knowing how well they defended this part of their bodies as a vunerable point, it was unlikely that a human stripped the jailor of its mask. Possible, yes, but only if said human had practice sparring with the netherworld's minions. Which brought her no conclusions whatsoever, since she'd no idea how skilled the cultists here had been or if they had another otherworldly guardian serving them before this summoning. Her father, afterall, had been calling up servants for years before he had started trying to resurrect the tower.

'_Like everything else in life, calling forth evil probably takes practice to be perfect.' _Not that there was anything to be proud of for perfecting dark arts. Not in her opinion. Hell, even Dante's power-hungry twin brother had found such arts disgusting. Although it hadn't stopped him from using Arkham to reach his goals. Talk about a conflict of interests.

"Guess I'll be going into this blinder than I thought, since I don't even know what or who I'm tracking anymore." Muttering to herself, Lady readjusted the strap of Kalina Ann over her sweater-clad shoulders before exiting the trashed living room. Her typical school-girl gone barbarian outfit didn't cut it in New York City's winter weather, so she'd left for this morning's mission wearing a gray pullover sweater and stretch denim jeans. Not the height of fashion, but she wanted mobility, so the jeans had to stretch and the sweater had to fit close to her body.

With any luck, there'd only be a few cultists to round up and she wouldn't find herself staring down the jaws of a bigger devil. Because she'd never live it down if she had to actually call Dante as backup.

**&**

Back at Devil May Cry, the aforementioned half-devil found himself just waking up from an unusually long slumber. Normally he'd have been up at six or so, even though he got in at two, but last night's trouble had been more costly. It hadn't looked like a tough devil, but Dante had found out the opposite after being on the receiving end of its power. Getting holes punched in his gut wasn't pleasant, no matter how many times he had to 'get used to it'.

Smacking dry lips and attempting to wet them with his equally dry and swollen tongue made the devil hunter forsake all else for his favorite respite in the kitchen. A certain young lady he knew probably would have accused him of looking for liquor at this point, and even feeling like the walking dead he cracked a smirk at that. Yeah, right, even he wasn't dumb enough to think beer would quench thirst like his.

'_Nope, my only liquid savior is tomato juice. Not water. Not beer. And definitely not blood.'_ A scowl would have marred his face if it hadn't been obscured by the large bottle of tomato juice he was sucking greedily down. The last time he'd swallowed blood hadn't been of his own free will – _'As if I'd drink it like some cheap Hollywood vampire'_ – but she had been there when it was shoved down his throat, and she had been disgusted. Enough to shoot him in his perfect face at least five times. Stupid bitch, acting jumpy and violent and unfair like that when she knew damn well he hadn't done it on purpose, that he was a good devil, odd as that was. For the most part. He wouldn't have blamed her if she'd done that to him in a fit of jealousy over the pinup poster in his new office, but then, she'd have probably shot herself for having said fit.

'_Can't understand why she denies that kind of truth when she admits to things sane people wouldn't, like demons existing. C'mon it's not a crime to have a little sex life, Lady.'_ Especially not if it was with a stylin' white-haired hunter such as himself. No biggie, really, not the way Dante was figuring it. After Temen-ni-gru, he'd agreed to help her fight off the demons invading their world as part of her vengeance, and that seemed to soften her up a little. Which was good, because he'd kinda hoped she'd be more than just a good lay for him one day. Dante wasn't fool enough to scoff at the benefits of having a partner in his business, and Lady, with her drive and negotiating skills was turning out to fit that position quite nicely. Plus, fighting demons together was common ground that pulled them closer in other avenues of interest, so the business relationship was bound to end up as something more over time. That was his plan anyway.

And it would probably have worked by now, after three years, if it hadn't been for her stubborn, die-hard attitudes about devils and the lesser demons. Smashing the empty glass juice bottle on the grimey, graying counter-top, the half-devil found himself still pissed and puzzled at that not-so-insignificant factor in his friendship to Lady. Not that he wanted her to start proclaiming her love for the evil things prowling the night, but why couldn't she make an exception for him? He was half-human too, and his mother's blood counted for way more to him than his father's did.

A slight growl under his breath as he proceeded to the back and the bathroom became a string of curses as he stopped jarringly in his tracks, realizing that he'd really screwed up this time. That his days with Lady might be numbered. Because he'd forgotten all about that mission she'd asked him to go along on today, and no lady took kindly to being stood up. Least of all that Lady.

'_Well, fuck,'_ was the only thing the devil-hunter could think as he hurried back towards the bathroom for a quick shower. Maybe if he hurried, he'd still make it to the job site, and she wouldn't toss his assistance to the side like dog-shit. _'Except that I don't know where the job's at, or the informant, so I can't even call anyone. Damn. Just my damn lucky day, ain't it?'_ He banged open the door to the bathroom mercilessly, as if it was to blame for his sleeping late and missing out on mission. What he wouldn't give to kill last night's demon all over again…

Stripped naked, the pale hunter's icy blue eyes narrowed venomously at the thought of what one string of messed up events could cost him. If he was honest about it, he'd be able to handle losing a shot at anything more serious with Lady since she'd already refused him once. Funny, but he'd understood for once in his life the concept of bad timing when hitting on a girl after that incident and the look on her face when he'd advanced in the library. At the time, she'd still been a.) too upset with her own inability to stop her father and b.) getting over being beaten by a half-devil and made to realize how sick her prejudicial treatment of said half-devil had been, to want to flirt.

Because whether she liked it or not, knew it or not – 'Banking on not on this one, clever as the little Lady is' – she'd been flirting with him for some time since Temen-ni-gru, and there had been some chemistry then too, he knew it. Women may have intuition, but devils had a literal sixth sense for those things humans called chemistry, the emotions people felt about each other. Demons thrived and fed off of fear, but they knew the taste, smell, and even sight of those other human emotions they sensed too. And what Dante lapped up off of her was nothing that disgusted him like the acidic, bile-raising emotion that human fear was to him. No sir, it was something he'd found to be much better than that, much better even than the emotion that Lust's were named for eating up, something he was sure his father had enjoyed about his mother – because Eva had loved Sparda – and he loved tasting, smelling, sensing that Lady loved him. Even if she didn't know it.

Unfortunately for him, if he didn't get out of his luke-warm shower soon and head over to find her, he'd never get to have that thrill of emotion off her again, because he'd run the possibility of ruining their partnership altogether. Which would suck a whole lot more than her turning him down permanently as a potential date. He really could live with it if she 'dumped' him, since there were other fish in the sea, as the saying went, but he knew he'd miss the wacked out friendship they had to the point of getting pissed over losing it. And although he lost his temper a lot, he was rarely really pissed off, since it made his devil blood go wild, and it made him forget everything that was important to him, like the value of human life his mother had taught him, leaving him a violent homicidal machine…which made him too much like his cold, ruthless twin.

'_And I like me.'_ Which meant he'd also like to keep being able to swap insults, flirt shamelessly, and keep his big macho ego in place with Lady. Even if she had seen a different kind of water dripping down his face than the last droplets of his shower, after he'd gotten back from the hellish tower. Devil May Cry, indeed. Big softie that he was inside, Dante sped butt-naked over to his room, sniffing potentially clean clothes from all over the room's expanse before grabbing a black turtle neck and his old wide-legged black leather pants. And undies. And his red 'pimp' coat, as she'd teased him once. And Rebellion. And Ebony and Ivory.

Pulling and holstering everything into place, the half-devil sped back out of his room, intending to search the hard way when the phone rang. Tempted as he was to just let it ring and rush out the door to rescue his reputation with Lady, Dante whacked the desk with his fist and caught the receiver up to his right ear.

"Devil May Cry, handling all your super-freaky and nasty as hell, pun intended, exterminations. What's the word?"

"The word is licorice. And this is the chief of police, I was told I could call your establishment about the cultist case. Is it, ah, finished yet? The young woman said it shouldn't be too long of a time before it was over. Or is there need of the cleanup crew she mentioned? Were there survivors or cultists that you captured? They'll need to be brought to the station if you don't mind. I can't send a car to do that."

"Whoa, there, buddy, slow down. First, I didn't say she could hand out my number for this, and second, no it isn't done, or she'd be here jumping all over my ass."

"Excuse me? I hardly find that appropriate for the situation, Mr., ah, Dan…Dante, sir. And what do you mean it isn't done? Was there a problem?"

"Shit, she gave you my name too? What the hell!" The half-devil ran a hand through his shaggy white hair, obviously harried by this news. What had that crazy woman been doing? Hell, if he really minded, but it wasn't her number yet! She didn't have the right. He really didn't have time to think about that right now though, time and a place for it later. "…No, no problem, just give me the address will ya? So then I can get over there and not have my ass handed to me out of a bazooka barrel."

"So you are the second hunter she mentioned then? I was beginning to won…well, not my department there. The address is…"

Dante let the receiver fall back to its cradle, coat swirling behind him as he barged out the doors to Devil May Cry scant seconds later. Thank God, or whoever, for motorcycles. He'd never felt more grateful for Lady's introduction of the machine to his life than now. When it might get him to her before she gave the partnership an early grave.

&

**Fuyuko: Finito for the first chapter. Dust like the demons, baby. And hopefully, I'll actually get through this story, since it should be short. **

**Dante: There's more of this crap? **

**Fuyuko: Well…not quite, since I write as I go…but there is more to the plot. I mean, look at the title, dummy.**

**Dante looks. Then he proceeds to mumble something unintelligent about "devils" and "babies" and "with her..?", before popping an anger vein and shooting at Fuyuko. **

**Fuyuko: Gah! You've got it all wrong! Misunderstanding! And you know you like it! Help me, Disclaimer-Bot! **

**Disclaimer-Bot: There is nothing to disclaim. However, I can ask readers to review, if it would not be too much trouble. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Fuyuko: Well, that was exciting. At least he wasn't really trying to kill me. Though I expect to get killed in my sleep by Lady/Mary haters. Or the OOC Protection League. **

**Lady: Is there such a thing? **

**Fuyuko: Dunno. Maybe you could loan me Kalina Ann just in case..?**

**Lady: Hmm, no.**

**Disclaimer-Bot: Not to worry, I've disclaimed all rights to the Devil May Cry franchise and its characters for you, author chick, so the only ones left to blame are Capcom for leaving their work in the ruthless clutches of twisted fanfiction writers. **

**Fuyuko: …Ouchie. That stings my innocent little black heart. Best cure? Proceed with the fic!**

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle**

**&**

Dante sped down the highway to the address across town that he'd been given by the chief of police. He was actually glad that the site was farther away, because going down the highway was a lot quicker than having to do the whole stop'n'go crap with the traffic lights in town, especially since he wasn't exactly doing the legal limit on the highway either. Not like he'd get caught, since his flame red Ninja ZX-12R motorcycle had been modified by an old friend to exceed speeds of 275 mph, while being whisper quite if he pressed the right button. Well, maybe not whisper quite, it did still have a telltale whoosh of air and a slight purr behind it, but it was a lot better than just letting it roar while he was breaking the speed limit at least three times over. Add to that the few other buttons that he could use to access other modifications, such as a light distortion device that effectively cloaked him against paved road, and the two submachine guns off the front and the bike was the thrill-seeking devil-hunter's dream. _'Mm, I love a fast bike. And I love my custom baby here even more, hah! It kicks almost as much as I do.'_

He'd even gone so far as to insure that he'd have such a good bike forever by having three printed copies of the plans kept. One in his own office desk, another in a fireproof and warded box he kept in the very same bank his parents had used and trusted, and the last in the hands of the man who'd made the modifications, since he knew the old guy wouldn't sell out on him. A bit obsessive, but then, Dante reasoned, what self-respecting young guy didn't love a sweet ride enough to properly protect it. At least he only washed his twice a week. Not like that weirdo who shared Lady's duplex and did the whole wash, wax, and rotate tires thingy every day. Freak.

Tearing down the highway at what would have been a breakneck speed for a normal human, his red-coat flew out behind him like a trailing signal as he darted around other cars, motorcycles, vans, and even a Mac truck or two. So far, there'd been no cop in sight, and he'd been risking it, going open, and yeah, showing off by popping a wheelie when swerving left around a carload of college girls, but he knew better than to do that for too long. The first and only time he'd gone this fast without the cloak before had ended with him being pulled over at a barricade after an hour or so of being tailed, and then he'd had to lie about how he'd been going so fast in the first place and why, keep his bike from being compounded, and call in some favors with another local police branch that knew him well and owed him in order to dodge the massive jail time too. That hadn't exactly been his bottle of tomato juice, although it had been satisfying to tear into the demons he'd been chasing midway through the joyride after he caught them again. If only cops would pullover speeding demons too…

'_Not that they could even see them. The only way they knew I was coming was because I wanted to hear my baby roar.'_ That and the guys in the cruiser staking out the interstate had seen the blur of his bike and then the spent shell casings from the submachines littering the road. Then they'd called for that barricade, and things had gone to the shitter as usual. Needless to say, the half-devil pushed the little, inconspicuous, gray button that turned on the bike's cloaking device.

About fifteen miles from where he'd merged on, the now almost invisible devil maneuvered his precious red Ninja to the right side of the road, and pointlessly signaled before ripping down the off ramp. Force of habit, more than anything else, but at least he couldn't be called a bad driver. Less than five minutes later, Dante found his swift progress impeded by the most vile enemy ever to grace an intersection. A red light. With traffic. _'It just keeps gettin' better and better, all the time,'_ as Lady'd heard him grumble often in the past.

Cursing under his breath as he pushed both the red silencer button and the gray cloak, causing the sleepy looking driver of the VW Jetta behind him to start with the motorcyclist's 'sudden' appearance, he waited as patiently as could be expected of him. Which meant a sight that he was sure Lady would have laughed at had she been there, because it was awfully hard to tap his foot impatiently while keeping his balance and his brakes on. Plus, the look on his face, somewhere between grumpy, childish pouting, and murder, was indeed laughable when combined with wind-tossed white hair.

The thought of her pretty face laughing at him did little to put the white-haired hunter at ease, as it reminded him of how quickly her smiles became scowls and how she wasn't going to be doing anything like laughing when she saw him. _'Damn if I'm lucky enough that she doesn't shoot me. Doesn't she know it hurts? Probably figures it doesn't, the way I take a sword through the chest every friggin' five minutes.'_

Of course, he'd never actually tell her it hurt either, because there was no way she'd let him live that down. It was nice to have a teasing banter with her, but there was no way in hell he was giving her real ammo. Like telling her how he and Vergil had shared a bed until they were six, and each always had the same had a red or blue teddy tucked under an elbow at night. Actually, he probably could tell her how Vergil had done that, since it never hurt to pick on him. It was just an added bonus that it would make him look like the manlier twin. Not that there was anything to compete with. Dante was positive Vergil the cold fish could not have snagged a woman, much less Lady, even if he stripped naked and danced around a pole.

Sitting with relative calm at the stoplight, the hunter was surprised that nobody freaked out when a green-hued, winged, and seven foot tall devil blurred past into the moving traffic. _'…Take it back, I'm not surprised, seeing as how most can barely see a bumblebee zipping around their face.'_ And he knew from personal experience that humankind also had a nasty habit of just plain not seeing what they thought couldn't be there. Odd logic that left a lot of unanswered questions in their lives, but it did apparently work for most, since they just went on their happy little ways without bothering with things that were obviously nothing more than childish nightmares and fairytales.

"I always knew there was a reason Peter Pan didn't want to grow up. He wanted to keep from being such a deaf, dumb, and blind moron!" Pushing all of the buttons on his custom red bike one more time, the devil-hunter tore around the right side of the Hummer he'd been blocked behind and after the rapidly fading devil's green form.

Deciding that dodging traffic and trying to keep his prey in sight was too much hassle for no pay, the white-haired hunter bounced his beloved bike up onto the curb at no less than seventy mile per hour. Dodging people was so much easier, especially if he rode the curb itself. And he could still see the devil. In fact he could see that it was turning. Away. Into a dark and presumably deserted alley. He'd always known devils went in for clichés, but that move was pushing it. Humans were definitely the classier side of the balance, each one having a personal flair.

Pushing the motorcycle up to a hundred mph, he reached the corner a lot faster than expected and practically flew into the turn, skidding to a stop within the confines of the alley with only a slight screech of brakes.

"Well, well, what do we have here? A big, ugly, stupid son of the Pit, that's what." Smirking and taking his sweet time getting off his bike and putting the kickstand down, Dante could hear it snarl half in surprise and half in raw anger at him. _'What, it didn't really think I'd miss it against the red brick wall, did it? Even a human ain't that blind.'_ Twirling Ebony and Ivory out of their holsters and in his hands as he strolled casually towards it, he was still ready when the devil lunged at him with its shoulder down, in a ramming position. Leaping clear of the attack, Dante stretched out a tiny bit of his own devil's power, looking for the trace of its own that would tell him things every other hunter would have killed to know. He'd be the last to admit his devil's power was a good thing, but the first to admit that it came with some damn good tricks.

'Course, he was always thankful for his mixed blood on the battlefield, even if only grudgingly. He knew to pay respect where it was due; even if she always told him he was an arrogant jerk. Thinking of Lady, the blue-eyed hunter was momentarily distracted enough for the green devil to get an actual swipe at him rather than thin air. Growling at the large rip running the length of his left sleeve, he had to admit he was thankful for special armored cloth too. It might have looked like a pimp suit, but it was tougher than nails. Which was good, since it had demonic ones ripping at it all the freakin' time.

Firing Ebony at the creature and pacing after it as it dodged the bullets, the half-devil kept Ivory hidden by the flap of his coat, charging it with his devil's power until it was fairly crackling with demonic energy. He'd noticed that the devil, although looking quite tough, with hard biologic armor like a shell over its back, neck, and torso, was exposed quite badly around its wings and legs. The legs, which were long and spindly, almost looked useless compared to its thick arms and huge jaws that were mostly a gaping hole filled with teeth. No ears in sight, but 'Pukey', as Dante had christened his opponent, was outfitted with a large set of eyes that strongly resembled a fly's, although they didn't bulge out of its head.

Sidestepping up a wall a it threw a couple of yellow-green energy spears at him, the hunter twisted his back in a body bind that would have made a contortionist sick and swinging his hidden arm out, fired off the power-packing bullet from Ivory. There was no way he'd miss with it directly below him like that, and slowed from launching its own attack. Even if it had dodged the instant he'd fired – which it had not been able to – there was no way it could miss the shot entirely. Landing catlike on his own feet after back-flipping off the wall, the son of Sparda had a chance to admire his technique as it tore through 'Pukey's' left wing and elbow.

"Whoo! Nice fight, buddy, but you look like you could use a rest…Come to papa and he'll put you down for some sweet dreams!" Lady might have hated his attitude while fighting, but he really couldn't help celebrating how much better he was than his opponents, not when he knew they all judged him down as only a halfling. The smirk from earlier had become an all out devilish grin, showing off larger and sharper pearly whites than was normal in Dante's mouth. Yeah, he couldn't resist a good taunt, made it that much more fun when they got angry. Then they rushed him recklessly out of rage, and he looked even better whirling around them like it was nothing.

But 'Pukey' either had other plans or was smarter than the rest of his breed, as still snarling at the white-haired half-devil, he jumped backwards into the air and shot off like a rocket. Not surprising, since flight for most devils had more to do with demonic power flow than actual wing usage. Reholstering the custom handguns at his back, the devil hunter snorted as he watched his prey go.

"Guess I'll catch you later, Pukey." He mumbled under his breath, pacing back towards the alley's entrance leisurely.

No biggie. He'd just have to follow the damn thing now, which was not going to be a problem, even when its wounds sealed up with devil power. Because now he had the scent of its blood to follow, and there was no way it could hide that. Times like these, he was glad his dad had been a devil too, because it meant he could turn their own abilities on them.

"No wonder Pops was the best devil-hunter there ever was. Not hard at all to become a legendary dark knight when you've got the same advantages as your foe."

Nope, not at all hard when you had everything they had. Even easier if the target had clearly headed in the same direction you were. Maybe he'd wind up on Lady's good side after all, for sending her a 'pre-chewed' devil to shoot around. Not rushing in the least, Dante ambled back to his motorcycle and after wiping some oozy, too bright blood off her, roared back out onto the main road. He could go for a good, relaxing ride on the way to the job site. Lady'd understand.

**&**

Lady had never seen anything so destroyed since Temen-ni-gru had rebuilt itself standing up. The walls and floors here were caked with just as much blood and remains as the ancient tower had been, and it was worse in a way here, because it was all so fresh and a vivid reminder that what she was hunting could obviously rip her limb from limb. And it had been doing it to its previous victims agonizingly slowly, almost as if it was torturing them. Not that she was surprised, even rookies knew that devils of any level enjoyed tormenting their human meals.

Funny how people still thought they were at the top of the food chain with stuff like this happening. It was one thing when a dumb animal mauled some jerk in its territory, it was another to be invaded and eaten like frightened pack animals. There were times Lady questioned the logic of her fellow man. But right now wasn't the time to be thinking of basic biology principles, except in the case of realizing she was prey and there was a predator out there that she had to avoid, outsmart, and kill.

Which meant turning the tables on the whole prey/predator scheme, and denying the fact that she was increasingly aware of her own weakness against the strength this demon was displaying. Denying her human instinct to run like hell out of this screwed up scenario and possibly hide under the covers, which she hadn't done since she was little.

No way. She couldn't do that, couldn't chicken out, not with thoughts of a failed mission, lost innocent lives going unavenged, and Dante calling her coward looming over her. She couldn't even bring herself to chuckle mirthlessly though, when briefly wondering if maybe he'd hid under the covers too as a child. _'Doubt it. Doubt he'd admit it either, even if he had.'_

She'd passed into a long hallway that, other than having its overhead lights smashed and popping with sparks of electricity, was relatively unscathed. For a job situation like this one, the whole place was relatively intact, as a matter of fact, which did nothing to settle her nerves. Only the really high level devils would be cunning enough to cover their tracks like that, to leave a place they'd ravaged looking no worse than a human crime scene. And if it was bothering to cover up that well, then the devil she was hunting – _'Or being hunted by, can't rule that out with my luck'_ – was after more in the human realm than just a few tasty snacks.

_Great, just great. I'm hunting an overly large and clever devil that's obviously not here just to sample the hors d'ouvre and jump back in hell, and there's no Dante for backup. _As soon as she'd though it, Lady cursed herself for being such a scaredy-cat and for acting like a weak woman needing a man. A half-devil jackass, actually, who'd probably spend way too much time fooling around and screw the mission up worse than it already was. With the way he got stabbed, beat up, blown up, shot at, and stabbed again while hunting, Lady was actually feeling luckier without the walking broken mirror around. Yeah, she could handle this a whole lot better without counting on him as her backup.

If she could face off with him and his twin years ago both in the sacrificial chamber and the Divine Library, then she was probably good to go toe to toe with it. Because there was no way some measly cultists had called up something stronger than a son of Sparda. _Although I have the sneaking suspicion that neither of them was treating me as anything more than a toy. _No matter how respectful of her increasing skill and strength at fighting demon-kind he was, Dante certainly didn't view her as being in his league. The way he strutted around and showed off when they had partnered missions more than told her that. She'd have thought the son of a legend would have more self-control than that. But then, self-control was more the other son of Sparda, and she'd take a bumbling idiot over someone that reserved any day.

Humorless as she was right now, Lady could still understand cutting loose every once in a while, she could agree with Dante that it kept a person sane if they learned to 'roll with the punches' so to speak. Although her own coping was more a style of living each situation as its own reality. She didn't go out hunting with the same attitude that she took with her on a vacation. Not that she'd had a vacation recently. It was open season on humans all year round as far as devils were concerned, which meant she had to play game warden all year too.

Suppressing a shudder at that thought, the female devil-hunter saw that she was nearing the end of the hallway, without having had to investigate a single offshoot room yet, which was both odd and annoying. It probably meant that the cultists had a single room branching off of the hall's end in a cliché horror movie fashion. Of course, it was also providing her a small level of assurance right now, knowing that such a cautious demon would only jump prey from an already existing opening into the hall, which made it easy to cover herself. If there'd been tons of doors lining the hallway, she'd have probably said screw it and just blasted everything with Kalina Ann. She wasn't a pyromaniac, but she wasn't a risk-taker either.

True to her expectations, there was a pair of doors near the dead-end wall of the hall, and since one of them was ripped off its hinges and she could clearly see the bloody and strewed remains of an old female in a robe stylized with runes and pentagrams and a dark-skinned young man who'd had too many piercings before he'd been gored, there was no reason to investigate it further.

"At least the demon is saving me the trouble of dealing with the original problem. It obviously didn't feel like obeying any humans even if they knew black magic."

Pulling her rifle off her left shoulder and loading it with a handful of shells, including a silver one that her dealer had said would pierce demon hide like wet paper, her bi-colored eyes trained themselves on the opposite door. It actually looked well-preserved, aside from the bloody claw marks around the handle, where the demon had fumbled with it. Readying a pistol for easy access at her hip, Lady cautiously stepped across the hallway, senses on high alert.

Her best weapon right now was the element of surprise, since the demon, clearly intent on whatever it was searching for here, was not interested in her presence. She doubted it hadn't sensed her at all, no demon had ever been that unobservant in all the time she'd been a hunter – which wasn't much more than five years – and she had it on good information that they never would be truly snuck up on by a human. Hell, even her source of good information couldn't sneak up on them, even if he'd never really tried and did wear a rather garish shade and amount of bright red.

She just wished she could have the same senses they did, because it might have helped to know that her breathing, which sounding heavy and harsh to her, was giving her away like a tornado to them. If she knew how loud her heart thumped in her chest and how her whisper quiet steps sounded like a kid stamping their feet to them, she'd have done everything in her power to stifle the noise. A human needed all the help they could get when facing off against a regular demon, and she was going after something a far cry bigger. And smarter. And faster. And deadlier. And she wasn't helping herself, was she?

'_Not the time to get frightened, Lady, you've very little clue how that will affect the target, but it damn well won't help out on your end, and the only way to hunt successfully is to keep things under control.' _Willing herself to calm, and focusing on steadying her breath to something that could be mistaken for air in the ventilation, Lady finally turned the scratched up handle on the door. What she'd find on the other side, was a mystery for now, but she was fairly certain there was a fight in her near future, so long as she wasn't ambushed right away.

The door swung in gently on its hinges when she pushed lightly against the turned handle, and she stepped inside as quietly as possible for her human self, aware that it was loud to her opponent anyway, and there was nothing she could do about it, except let the familiar action swing her into gear. Creaking only a little in protest yet sounding like a moan of terror to her, the door was pushed to again and her back pressed against its solid metal surface. Idly she wondered who the hell kept a metal door in their household, then looked around her and realized she was finally in familiar cultist territory.

The walls of this room had sheets of metal tacked up to them, and she was willing to bet the concrete and sheetrock beneath it all was reinforced. There were no windows, and the lights had been halogen overheads, built directly into the ceiling, although they weren't doing any good now, as the devil had obviously taken the time to blow out the bulbs instead of just busting them entirely and leaving a trail. _'Clever bastard, alright, but he's not fooling me. And a girl is always prepared.' _Lady countered the darkness the room had been plunged into by switching out her hip pistol for one with a larger barrel that had a flashlight incorporated into it.

She'd been too proud to complain about it, but she knew when he'd given her the modified gun that Dante had understood how pissed it made her to be limited by the inferiority of human eyesight in darkness. _'Not that I'm saying he's useful all the time, because he isn't, but it's good to have a guy like that around. And he didn't even ask any awkward questions or make a stupid wisecrack, which was swee...better.'_ She almost laughed at how girly she'd started to sound there, taking his commonsense gift as something more sentimental. She had to admit, though, there was nothing she liked more than a guy who was handsome and shared her love of good guns. Wait, that didn't sound right either. Dante was not handsome – who has white hair at that age? – and he probably only was tinkering with it so he'd have a reason to have taken it in the first place. Because he hadn't asked to borrow it, that was for sure.

The room was large too, she noticed now, and appeared to be filled with stacks of occults books, a computer, and a half- dozen cabinets, some of which had been pulled open and then slammed again, causing whatever was inside to let out a yellow ooze that made her think of the jars her father had kept filled with fluid and the decapitated heads he studied, both human and demon. She'd been frightened of such things as a child, but after her mother reassured her daddy was only doing it for science, she'd been okay with it. Until she'd seen him cut off her sacrificed mother's head and known where it was going. When she'd blown up her childhood home, that lab had been the first thing she detonated. Now, looking at the semi-viscous fluid, she only felt numb, having gotten everything out on top of Temen-ni-gru years ago. Largely thanks to a certain pair of half-devil twins, but hey, at least she'd gotten the last say in Arkham's demise. A part of her liked to think Dante had done that on purpose, but in reality, he'd probably just been careless as usual.

Trying not to flash the beam from her flashlight wildly or too far ahead of herself, Lady almost missed the fact that her exploration of the room had brought her back to a section of the room that had metal bars coming out from the walls in such a manner that it seemed to be made into cells. Taking a closer look at the nearest one, she could see that cells had indeed been the right term for what was before her, as the bars wrapped and divided themselves into three jail-type cells, each with a sturdy looking steel door and lock.

Clicking the beam to a lower setting and muffling the sound with her hand, the dark-haired hunter slowly and thoroughly began to inspect the interiors of each one of these structures. The first had been used recently to house something, but whatever it was had been dead a while before she and her prey arrived, leaving behind a large coil of something resembling snake-skin. _'I doubt they were keeping Cecil the snake in there, though, even if they are 'normal' enough to have a TV.'_ Having advance knowledge of the way cultists covered up with seemingly normal clothes and furniture in through her own father, Lady hadn't taken anything before this at face value. The second cell, she was discovering, was devoid of anything, but now she thought she could hear breathing, and something else, a strange gurgling whimper or growl, that most likely was her devil or something just as sinister that would need exterminating.

Mixed as her feelings were over this find, since she hated boring missions, but wasn't crazy enough to be hopping to fight a man-eating creature, she at first didn't register everything that she found in the last and largest cell. When she did, she was later chagrined to realize that all her hard, stealthy, cautious work had been for naught. She definitely wasn't expecting something like that to be her prey.

**&**

**Fuyuko: And now the game is really afoot, my dear Watson. Not sure how many more chapters there will be to this, but then I'm never sure where my haphazard writing will go. Anyways, that's it for now, 'cept for you folk reviewing.**

**Lady coughs and flicks her bi-colored eyes at Fuyuko. **

**Fuyuko: Der? …Oh, right! Thanks to everyone that reviewed the first chapter, it does mean a lot to me, especially since every one of them was a helpful critique. Later!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Fuyuko: Grah! The stupid document manager wasn't letting me upload the second chapter last night or all morning today (seriously a 12 hr. period? What the hell!) So here I am, typing out the next chapter from desperation. **

**Dante: What if you can never upload again? **

**Fuyuko: Don't say that. Really, just don't, it would be too horrible. I think I'd have to kill, and you're the only person handy. **

**Dante: Uh, no? What about that stupid robot? Kill him, not me.**

**Disclaimer-Bot: I do not think she would derive enough satisfaction from such an act, as I cannot scream in high girly pitches. In fact, I cannot scream at all, and all she would need to do would be to remove my batteries. She would have more fun torturing you. However, her sadism is prevented by the fact that Capcom owns Dante, and Lady, and all other DMC references, and that Matel owns Barbie. As such, she can only write out things to terrorize you in this next chapter.**

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle**

**&**

Staggering back two steps before she could clamp down on her shocked mind, the female hunter still had a hard time ordering her thoughts on the contents of the third cell. There was no way that it fit in logically with what she'd found, unless she was being deceived right now, but then that didn't explain the young woman holding...well, holding it. It? Wait, was she sure it wasn't just a regular human baby? How many babies had she actually seen in her career and hadn't she heard they looked like ugly little things anyways? _'But that's how I know it's not a human baby! It's not ugly. Sure it's hair and skin are a little green, but it's still not a fleshy pink blob of crying and pooping.'_ That calmness had to be otherworldly, and it did have a green tint to it. Had to be a devil. Had to be! There was no other answer, and she knew that most could fool a human's eyes easily enough.

Gritting her teeth, Lady raised the pistol in both hands to quell the shaking. She shouldn't even have been shaking, she was tougher than this, it was just another devil to exterminate! Her eyes betrayed her first, she knew without looking in a compact mirror – _'Not that I have one, no way!_' – that the grim resolve to kill in them wavered as she looked at the scene before her. Hell, but she just wasn't capable of cold-blooded murder. Foolish as she knew it was, Lady lowered her gun.

There, in the dim lighting her flashlight cast on the third cell, was a young black-haired woman cradling a baby to her chest. But the female hunter was certain that the baby, was no baby at all, or maybe it was more than your average baby. She was also certain that she couldn't kill it, even if it wasn't human. Besides, the human woman would also feel the effects of any shots that Lady might have fired, as she was curled around the baby protectively, even laying on her side in a fetal position. And where she might have gone ahead and shot them both for being under demonic influence and all in her early days, there was no way she'd do it now. She'd never heard the whole story, but after hearing even a little bit of Dante's family's history, she'd realized the worst kind of act a person could commit was to attack a mother and her children. He'd never forgive her if he knew, and she wouldn't blame him if he didn't.

There really was nothing for her here now, was there? Even if the woman wasn't the devil's mother and was being used by it, she couldn't attack them, but she knew better than to leave the devil child for the authorities to pick up later. They wouldn't be stupid enough not to notice that the baby wasn't normal, and she was pretty sure it could be killed by regular bullets at this age. _'Or worse, what if they carted it off to some government facility for research? Devil it may be, but it nobody should be treated like a lab rat.' _Lady had seen enough of her father's research on captured demons to know the baby would suffer. Still standing over the mother and child, she distracted herself from thoughts of the baby's fate by beaming her flashlight across the rest of the cell and observing her immediate vicinity.

The young dark-haired woman and her devil baby were lying on a thin mattress that had one side of it pushed up against the cold metal walls, and it was clear that they'd been given food and water, albeit in pie tins. In the farthest corner of the cell, Lady's flashlight illuminated a crude clay pot that looked like it had been the toilet. Piled in the adjacent corner were some sheets with dried blood on them, dirty shirts that looked like they had spit-up on them, and a talisman that was still faintly glowing although it had been partially dissolved by something. Looking back at the pair directly in front of her, she finally realized that the whimpered growls were coming from the baby, as it nuzzled the chest of the woman holding it. The young woman, however, didn't react, and Lady stepped inside the cell to wake her up if need be.

As if it had sensed her, the devil baby raised its head and looked at her with a focus that a normal baby wouldn't have possessed. Its eyes, nose, mouth, and facial features gave her a jolt, as even though the skin was slightly green, she could not help but see that they were obviously the same features on the young woman's face. _'There's no way…devils do not have children with humans, Sparda was an exception! This girl, she can't be the mother! She's obviously been imprisoned with it as a slave, as food, as a caregiver…a mother…'_ It was a role the woman before Lady had clearly filled, but now it seemed it might have been possible she was truly caring for her own child. Humans consorted with demons all the time, true, but not in this manner, there was no reason to create a life that you couldn't control when you could make a pact with weaker demons and have control.

Advancing towards the woman she was trying desperately to deny as the baby devil's – she knew in the pit of her stomach it was a half-devil – human mother, the brunette hunter was shocked to see that there was blood running down the woman's side. Her stomach clenching into a knot and her mouth beginning to sour, Lady's hand reached out to grasp the woman's shoulders and shake gently, fearing that she'd failed before she'd even arrived. _'Please, just let her be asleep, let at least one person have lived through this hellish place,'_ like a mantra, Lady couldn't stop repeating her hope inside her head as her hand drew closer to the mother and child. She'd never been more focused in her life, not on a job she'd been paid and hired to carry out. She'd never let her guard down so much. She'd never expected to get thrown across the room, against a shelf that fell down with a crash and the sound of glass shattering inside it.

Raising her head dazedly, as if the throw had been just another part of what was becoming a sick nightmare, Lady found herself being stared down by a seven foot tall, green, and winged devil with the compound eyes so common on bugs. Rapidly coming to, she could only agree with a voice in her muddled head that sounded suspiciously like her half-devil partner in thinking that things _'had gone to the crapper, same old, same old.'_ Because there was no way that this devil's appearance would help her or the mother and child she wanted so desperately to spare from the carnage here.

Gathering her wits and weapons about her, Lady realized that although the devil wasn't unaware of her movements, it was more focused on the occupants of the third cell. She could feel the muscles of her mouth stretching and aching with her grimace. Like hell it would do anything to them on her watch, even if the baby was a half-devil, she wasn't going to let an infant suffer because of prejudices and a monster out to kill it just for existing. The green devil's attention in Lady seemed to be wavering in favor of investigating its other prey, so much so that it brazenly turned its back on an armed and not-so-weak opponent.

Needless to say, this raised Lady's hackles more, and not solely because it found her insignificant. _'No devil or demon turns their back to an opponent, not unless they think there's something worth risking death for.'_ Which meant that the mother and child were actually worth something to the devil she now faced and knew without checking was responsible for what had happened to the cultists. True that the death and destruction had been recent, but also true that the attacker had obviously fled the scene, probably as a diversionary tactic. And seeing this guy, she could believe that even more, the only question being why it would try to draw anyone away from what would have been a cozy hiding place for it.

She decided it didn't matter, the only thing she could do now was wait, keep her guns locked on it, and hope that it really wasn't going to go after the mother or child, that it was just curious, that it would turn back on her, because she had to kill it, and she couldn't do that where it was standing now, if she missed or the bullets went through, then the two helpless people on the mattress were dead, and she'd never be able to live with that, please just let it come after her. She was a hunter; there was no greater way to go than to save an innocent with one's own death. Lady's legs tensed as she tried to inch her way into a better position to shoot it. Without altering its focus, it growled at her, and somehow she knew it wasn't the usual 'I'm a devil and I'm gonna kill you and eat you' growl.

Especially not when the growl at her became a croon as it leaned its massive body over the woman, dwarfing her, but the baby wasn't howling yet, so Lady let it do that, hoping its curiosity would be satisfied, the devil seemed to be calling for attention. Dante had told her higher level devils were more cognitive of the world around them, that they could be curious, and that they instinctively knew even as babies the conditions of the environment around them. _'That's great, I'm supposed to protect the weak and I'm banking on a newborn's perceptions of endangerment to let me know what I should do next.'_ In any other situation, she would have rolled her eyes.

It continued to croon over the dark-haired woman and her baby, such a beguilingly sweet sound coming from the throat of such a violent creature was almost sickening to Lady's ears. At least the young woman wasn't buying it, exposing herself and the infant to the monster crouching over them. That would have made it even harder for Lady to shoot it, to believe that it was evil and wipe it off the face of the earth. Or at least it would have forced her to shoot around civilians, which she hated, since it wasn't as easy as just pumping a demon full of lead.

Or was she buying it? The woman may have been curled up on the far corner of the bloody mattress pad, but she wasn't trying to get away from the devil either. Which was strange, since most people had the worst type of prey response to a devil and tried to run from it. Tried being the operative word, since demons were more than capable of catching a measly human being and devils were stronger than demons. And now that she was looking at things from farther away, it looked like the girl wasn't so much curled up in fear of the demon hovering over her as she was balled up in true pain, since she had a large gash running down her left shoulder blade. _'Great, as if it needed more temptation to eat her alive.' _Blood was heady to human murders, so there was no doubt it was sweet ambrosia to a devil.

On the other hand, the insectoid, green devil didn't seem interested in snacking on either her or the two on the mattress pad. It almost seemed to be protecting them from her, hovering over the woman like that, and every time Lady moved, it growled defensively and shifted its back to block them from her view as much as possible. _'But that's just crazy, devils don't care like that, even if it was somehow related to them…oh. Oh no. No frickin' way!'_ As the unthinkable slid into place, defying all of her hunter's logic, she struggled to keep her hold on her sanity, on the reality immersing her. Just because it was defending them against her did not mean anything more than that the creature was keeping a hold on its food. Like an animal.

But already she knew better, deep in her heart a traitorous seed of doubt had been planted, and she'd been wrong before about Dante. Half-devils like he and this baby seemed to always bend the rules. Lady couldn't believe it and the old her was just screaming to shoot and get it over with, to hell with the woman and her baby, they were in danger whether she acted or not.

Even so, there was no way she could do it now, something so callous and cold, not with the mounting evidence of the scenes she'd uncovered during the mission. Every single cultist had been brutally murdered, had been forced to pay for what she thought was a failed summoning, and maybe it was, since the Lust they'd called up hadn't been a challenge for greeny here. And here, here in what was so painfully and clearly a torture chamber and lab, here were the only survivors, a mother and devil child, imprisoned by human hands, hands that mistreated them, hands belonging to he cultists that had been destroyed by a powerful devil. A powerful devil crouching and crooning over the same mother and half-devil child as though they were so important it had risked its own safety by turning its back on a hunter.

Feeling as though she'd failed and yet won a victory, Lady backed away slowly from the devil, mother, and their baby. It was making that mewling, growling noise again, facing the big green devil now, and the response it got amazed her. And she'd thought that devil parents were different than human ones. How much more absurd could this get. Shaking her head, moving softly for the door, Lady doubted she'd be react much if it did get stranger. The only missing part to this odd mission was her own half-devil.

&

Just minutes prior to this reflection, Dante was still taking his leisurely ride through the city streets, following the path his nose told him 'Pukey' had taken. He smirked, realizing that the green devil hadn't just headed in the same direction as his job site; it had taken a similar route to the one he'd planned to take to Lady. _'Well, isn't that just peachy? My luck's turning around after all.'_ The devil hunter smirked to himself as he sped along on his motorcycle, completely ignoring a red light.

No cop, no stop, as they said, particularly when you'd get off anyway for being friendly with the local deputies. Dante could understand being a working stiff in an underappreciated field, and he understood the need to crash at a bar and have free drinks even better. It wasn't like he was trying to deliberately leave them in his debt, since that feeling was entirely within their human hearts. Nope, he was definitely just being nice to fellow protectors of the good and innocent. He could hear her snort of derision now, even when she was still three miles away.

Dante frowned slightly, wondering if it was true what Enzo and the other bachelor guys said, that letting any woman into your business affairs was asking her to move into your flesh and soul, to carry out what they called a hostile invasion. Lady wasn't doing that was she? He heard himself snort, even over the bike's loud engine. There was no way, they weren't even partners really, and when they were it was mostly by coincidence or her call. Not that he minded either way, just that he wasn't too keen on having his office redecorated in Barbie tones.

Glancing briefly at the odometer, and seeing he had only a mile left before he reached the street for the job site, the half-devil doubted that any takeover by Lady would involve pink curtains and fluffy bunnies. She wasn't unfeminine, but she would probably prefer to hang more guns up in the front office if she ever moved into Devil May Cry. Which was fine by him. Guns were a common ground with the two, hell, she'd given him a rocket launcher of his own for Christmas a year ago, even though neither of them believed in the holiday. He grimaced, remembering he'd never actually given her anything in return, even if he suspected her gift to him had been a thank you for the modified flashlight pistol he'd given her earlier that year. Lady hated to be indebted to anyone.

It was probably her weak point, her inability to ask for help out of pride and never wanting to appear weak or have debts. Most especially not to him, a half-devil, even if her saying that was just words now. He could tell there was no feeling behind it, not like there had been at their first meeting, when she'd been so set on destroying all demons that she blinded herself to kindness, to reason, to even the threat of her own death. He'd had no choice but to literally beat her into submission in the end, and he had been amused at the end to see that she'd not only survived, but that she'd waited for him. It had been the first sign that he wasn't the only one that knew how she felt for him.

'_See, now, if everyone would just be as reasonable as me, there'd be no problems in either world.' _Not necessarily true, but hey, it was the thought that counted, right? Kind of like he hoped it would be the thought that would count when he met up with Lady inside the townhouse he had arrived at, wheeling his red Ninja up to Lady's older Suzuki bike. If his thinking of coming over to help her didn't save face for being late to the mission, then there probably was nothing he could do that would appease her. Not even groveling was good enough for his Lady. And she'd likely shoot him in the necessary region if he offered to be her sex slave for a week.

Shuddering more at that undeniably painful thought than the stench of death, blood, and demons emanating from the townhouse, the white-haired half-devil stepped inside the double doors. Inside, the carnage he'd smelt before became a visual assault as well, and he could sense that the deaths here had been recent. Too recent, as if they'd occurred only a few minutes prior to his arrival, which was not comforting, as he knew without looking at the still ticking grandfather clock in the foyer that he was a half hour late for his very important date.

Had Lady encountered trouble as severe as what the bloody scene in the townhouse showed as he stalked through it silently, he was sure even she would have had the sense to call for a little help. Or get the hell out of there, even if it would have been against her usual brave behavior. _'She would not have been stupid enough to tackle what could have done this on her own. Even with her pride…'_ Shit. Her pride.

He'd forgotten about that, in his attempt to blow off the increasing worry he could no longer deny for his well-loved partner. Her pride would have made her refuse to call him after he'd 'stood her up' this morning, and he didn't think there were any other hunters she would rely on. Dante could only snarl angrily, his devil form emerging first in the shadow behind him, as he hurried his search through the house, hoping she'd left. If she hadn't, if she'd stayed to tango with the devil that had killed the people here, if she was hurt, if that devil was still here, if it had tried to attack his Lady, then someone had better hold him back.

He'd already had a crappy morning, with having to rush over here, fighting that overgrown, green, ugly, pest, and now this was raining on what should have been his victory parade. _'That devil better not still be hanging around for dessert, because if it is, it's gonna have to settle for the old knuckle sandwich.'_ Not a pleasant experience if he was the waiter, but this morning had just been one thing after another and there was only so much stress he could take. He was only human, at least in part.

Dante hoped Lady was out of the way, he wasn't sure what she'd make of him right now. He'd lost his temper before, but never so blindly, and she still wasn't comfortable with his demon form either. Not that he could disagree, for a devil, he was still a youngling, and thus, his demon form hadn't matured. Instead of the majestic, if somewhat insect-like form their father had possessed, both of Sparda's white-haired sons were still in a larval stage, as devils went. Lady's reference to them as deformed, skeletal roaches wasn't too far off the bat, since their wings were too long for their still growing bodies, their facial features and bodies mutable to devil arms, and their horns had yet to crown them.

Bull-charging through the rest of the first hall, the living room, and the long hallway with the two doors at its end, Dante became increasingly concerned for his devil hunting partner. Even his humor wasn't helping him shake it. _'Lady's a big girl now, whipping around those guns and that lethal weapon of a bod, so there's nothing to panic over, D.'_ His teeth were still gnashed together, and he could feel them lengthen along with his nails as his stress mounted. He wasn't Vergil in the control department, but he knew better than to let his emotions control his devil trigger like this.

So why was he losing control now? It really was just one more thing about this day that was pissing. Him. Off. Good thing his perfect teeth weren't going to get damaged from all this grinding. Taking in the auras left in the hallway, the half-devil blew out a powerful breath, sensing Lady's energy behind the door to his right. The way it felt now, thrumming consistently and not flickering, he knew she was alive, unlike the two cultists who he knew from sight were dead. What kept his teeth locked together, however, was that the energy around their bodies had only recently changed to a death pattern, so recently that their souls were still lingering as well.

'_And that other energy is a devil's, one I'm sure I've felt earlier today. Not a good place to run to 'Pukey'. Sweet dreams are still coming for you.'_ There was no way that punk devil was getting away from him this time. Cultists or not, they had been human, and Dante the devil hunter never let a human killer get away. Those kinds of demons were unforgivable, same as the Mundus loving bastards that had taken his mother. Damn them and all their kind.

His rage swelling up like a tide of blood, the half-devil drove forward through the metal doorway, demonic influences overriding rational thought. He could taste her in this room that reeked of body fluids, noxious chemicals, and torment. Could smell her fear and confusion, smell the sulfurous presence of hell spawn, smell life and death. His reasoning was gone, he was blind to what his eyes showed him, deaf to more than the sounds of his prey, unable to sense that he'd become a slave to his demonic drive.

With an inhuman roar, the devil-triggered young man leapt forward from the doorway, lunging for the only thing he recognized in his blood-lust state. _'Kill it! Kill the green weakling that dares to threaten what is mine!'_ His leap had brought him toe to toe with the full devil, and snarling savagely, he swung his large, clawed hands in a vicious flurry of swipes. It returned his growl, a low challenge comprehensible only to demon-kind, dodging the swipes in a whirl of movement away from its mate and offspring.

Snarling and snapping fangs at each other like animals, the two devils clashed limbs again and again across the range of the room, each one striving to protect, unwittingly fighting a pointless battle. Dante kicked his left foot up in a roundhouse that had too large a frame of motion to be humanly possible, barely clipping his opponent's wings as it spun away. Still drawing him away from the human woman and her child, the green devil flared its wings rapidly, slowing the devil-hunter's advance with the force of the created winds.

Watching from below, Lady realized with horror that her partner was too far gone to grasp the whole situation, that he wouldn't understand until it was too late. Screaming for him to stop, screaming for his sanity to come back to him, she still knew it was hopeless, even if she shot him, he'd just ignore her. She wasn't his focus anymore; he only knew he had to kill what was challenging him. She shot him anyway with a rifle round, sick of being a bystander, of having to watch this like a game.

Dante ignored the bullet, even though it had pierced his right knee, there was no need to concern himself with that as he followed his retreating foe into the air. Blasting after him, becoming a red blur, he caught up with the other devil all too quickly, grasping the large wings and shoving the enemy below him with a feral growl. Squirming, the larger devil fell to the cold cement floor, having ripped off a wing to escape being torn apart entirely in the air. Staggering upright, it fell again as the younger devil pounced from above, crushing its thorax in landing, and ripping into its face with long claws. It struggled beneath the red half-devil, even as it could feel strength ebbing from its body, it needed to protect!

But there was little it could do against the furious blows tearing into its upper body, against the taloned feet that began scratching at its stomach. Even the human's weapon was not enough to halt the merciless assault, the bullets only pinging off the hardened flesh of the red one. It was choking now, its thick, dark blood clogging its lungs, as its limp arms failed less and less in an attempt to fight back. It simply did not have the strength, it couldn't sense anything anymore, knew it was doomed, knew the fight was lost at last, couldn't taste its own pain, couldn't hear the raucous roar of triumph that erupted from the throat of its killer.

Leaping backwards of his dead prey, his devil's rage falling from him, unclouding his senses, Dante smirked proudly, turning away from his triumph. _'Hoo, baby, I love a good fight. Gets the blood flowing, right?'_ Now there was just the matter of placating Lady, or taming the lioness, as he liked to think of it. He faced her, nonplussed with her shocked expression. He was amazing in battle after all.

"So, babe, was that hot, smokin', or sizzlin'? That little wimp didn't stand a chance against yours truly." The red trench coat he was wearing dripped blood off the hem ad sleeves as Dante sauntered towards her stunned form. Lady's spent rifle fell clattering to the cement from her nerveless hands, wide eyes focused on him.

"What have you done? Oh, God, Dante, what the hell have we done?" She couldn't help how weak she sounded right now, the shock was too much, she was thankful she hadn't puked, it wouldn't make him feel better when he finally understood what had happened. Maybe she shouldn't tell him, maybe just leave the baby's paternity out of it. He stopped in his tracks, smugness disappearing to be replaced with furrowed white brows.

"What do you mean? We killed the demon, the job's done, let's take care of any survivors and go by the station for our pay."

"Right, take care of the rest of the fami...the survivors. Dante, that woman and her baby…" She couldn't tell him, but she had to, he'd know right away from looking at the baby, if not smelling it. _'It would be easier if he heard it, if he had a chance to sort things through.'_ He'd already seen them, stepping towards them on booted feet. She hurried up behind him, grasping his right arm, pulling him to face her. His face showed that he was a bit thrown off by her sudden action, now or never, her mind told her.

"Lady?"

"Dante, that woman and her baby, they're, it's, well, the baby is a half-devil, I think, I mean it doesn't seem normal, it's skin and hair aren't, well, and it just doesn't seem like a fully human baby."

"It's a half-devil…" She could see it flash across his blue eyes, see the self-disgust growing there as his quick mind pieced together the puzzle. "…Oh fuck. What have I done?" His hands gripped his face, pulling at the flesh there, she was afraid he'd gouge himself, she tightened her grasp on his arm, pulling his arm with all her might, wanting to comfort him, to let him see she wasn't disgusted with him for not knowing. He made a growl in the back of his throat that would have scared her when they first met, but now she was too worried about him, and he knew it, so why as he trying to push her away?

"Please, Dante, don't do this to yourself, it's not your fault, you didn't know, I almost did the same thing." He let her pull his hands away from his face, and she knew, but she pulled them down to his sides, her sides, they were standing so close, it didn't matter anymore.

And she knew again he could cry when he couldn't stop the shake in his shoulders, couldn't help it as he clung to her. He was sobbing onto her shoulder, as they stood together, facing together what neither would have been able to face alone.

**&**

**Fuyuko: I can't believe I wrote that. **

**Dante: I can't believe you wrote that either! You made me a murderer! And a crybaby! I'm so outta this fic! **

**Fuyuko: No, actually, you aren't. You and Lady have a lot more to deal with. Show ain't over 'til it's over. But this chapter of drama is over, with a special thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter. I didn't get a chance to send out personal thanks to signed reviews, so here's the shout-outs: **

**Laryna6- Well, now, I'm not sure if it will be a pushover or not…it's already causing Dante grief, and yes, that other devil was important. Glad you liked the bike I gave him and Lady's gun. **

**Ulysess- Yeah, I love the DMC women, they're all amazing. Good to know you like the thoughts I put in for them, I like characters that people can relate to.**

**Rose-mirror21- Good to hear I'm keeping them IC, I live in fear of OOCness. And I'm glad you enjoy the story. **

**The Tyrant Hamster- I am resting well knowing it wasn't a fluke, especially with your generous review. I'm glad to hear to hear that everything works together, and I agree my fighting scenes need work. I'm more of a character developer than an action director when I write, but I'm hoping to balance that out. **

**Anyways, that's all for now, so stay tuned for the next update!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Fuyuko: Well, well, and I'm back again for more, finally. Hope you all like things with a heaping side of sorrow, because this chapter is high on the Tear-o-Tower. **

**Lady: You're such a nice person, did you know that? **

**Fuyuko: Really? Aw, I'm touched that you think that. I think you're nice too, why don't you ditch Dante and come with me baby? **

**Lady: Sarcasm, psycho-bitch, sarcasm. And I'm not dating demons or women, got it?**

**Disclaimer-Bot: I do not believe that you need to be concerned about her advances, as I happen to know that she only pursues elf-men. And I am certain she would find your inevitable pairing with the half-devil a more enjoyable thing. Which is one of the primary reasons she is continuing to write this fic, although Capcom will never fulfill her dreams in canon, and she does not have the rights to DMC. **

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle**

**&**

Dante lost track of how long he and Lady stood in that God-forsaken room holding each other like lifelines, but it felt like eons to him. Even as his sobs quieted, as his demon side fed off his own grief, the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. He felt like, he didn't know what he felt like; because it felt like he couldn't feel. But he could feel because he felt it when Lady shifted in his clutching hands, when her breath ghosted over his face, drying the tears to a sticky salt screen on his skin. He felt the world around him, but he could no longer feel himself, feel his human soul and emotions.

It felt like the night his mother was murdered before his eyes. And it felt worse this time because he knew exactly why he felt that way. Knew that he had damned someone else to feel that gaping hole in their heart for the rest of their life. He wasn't just the victim this time, he was the murderer too.

In his broken mind, the devil hunter registered the sound of soft whimpers, of cries that wrenched at his emotional wounds and eventually forced him to part from Lady's comfort. _'I don't deserve her care now; I don't deserve anything from her.' _The mix of guilt and renewed pain from his own orphaning was being swallowed by his demon half, a practice he had started long ago to strengthen himself. His steps were still heavier and his mind still foggy as he turned away from Lady and advanced towards the mother and child again, but gradually they regained a confident swagger. He could still help this child.

"Dante." He heard Lady's voice call out to him, half harsh reprimand and half soft sympathy. He stopped walking, but couldn't say anything, his own voice still choked and his comebacks still lost. He knew that she knew he was listening, though, she knew him so well these days, almost as if they lived together. _'Funny how before this I would have been pissing myself in excitement at that idea. Rain, rain on my parade, from now on, right, life?' _Then again, maybe not. It wasn't like his brunette partner was running from or trying to exorcise him.

"That woman…she's injured. I saw it earlier, before the devil got here…before all this. She needs to go to a human hospital, I don't think we can help her."

"Even if we take her to a hospital, we can't help her. She's dead, Lady. I can smell it." Huh, he'd thought saying that would have been worse than just dropping it like a lead weight into the room's atmosphere. Didn't make it better to say she was dead, but then, didn't make it any worse either. The white-haired man had smelled the stench of death when he'd arrived, even through his bloodlust, he'd known someone had died here. He just hadn't known it was the mother. If he had, maybe he wouldn't have killed the devil. No, he would have, he knew that. He'd known Lady was safe, and he'd still killed the devil. _'No sense in crying over spilt tomato juice. Just have to pick up the bottle and cleanup the mess.'_ He intended to make things right, as much as he could now, no matter the cost.

Lady had come up behind him, her petite gloved hands clenching reflexively. He understood that, understood how helpless she felt and how the urge to do anything made her experienced hands twitch. He engulfed them in his own rough hands and squeezed, trying to return her earlier gesture, trying to say 'thank you' and 'I know' and 'don't worry and we'll fix this', all at once, without saying what he knew he couldn't in words. No hunter was good at comforting those in the aftermath. Hunters came, cleaned house, and left. They didn't do disaster relief.

"So what now? We can't leave the baby here. It's not human, and nobody is going to try to help it because of that alone."

"We're not going to leave the baby. We're going to take her with us."

"Her? Nevermind, I guess you can tell that too. …Cheap devil."

"…Yep. Police are outside waiting if you'd like to lodge complaints against this cheap devil." He was glad they were bantering like usual, it was helping clear his conscience for the time. He was sure from her smell that it was relaxing her as well. Nothing like small talk to get the emotional leftovers pushed aside for later.

"Waiting for an all clear, huh? Should we smuggle her out then or take her out visibly?"

"Visibly, but wrap her up better. Hide more of the green skin. They'll buy it if we say she's sick and we're taking her to a hospital and her face is green." The half-devil's right arm swung out to block Lady from going forward herself, 'occupational hazards' was the intended warning, and they both knew he could handle those better. She yielded, watching his back and the still ajar door across the grim room as he crouched before the mother's dead body.

She'd been dead far less than twenty-four hours, that was certain, and probably no more than this morning, really. The blood on her wound was still fresh, red, and slightly oozing, a good visual sign that not only was it recent, but that it had never been tended to. Not a surprise, given her situation within the cultist's hands as a hostage. She'd obviously been captured to lure her devil lover out, their baby was just an added bonus, a backup plan if they didn't get daddy. Something powerful that they wouldn't need to control, just raise and brainwash. It made him want to snarl, but he swore instead, refusing to make the half-devil baby suffer more fear.

'_You'd be a cutie if it weren't for your skin, kid.'_ Large, sinewy hands moved slowly into the child's line of sight, because Dante remembered attacking fast moving objects when he was young. Besides, he wanted the kid to fuss as little as possible when he picked her up, and it would help if she familiarized herself with his scent and sight now. Devil babies had the instinct to attack what wasn't familiar to them, because an unknown represented death in the hell that part of them descended from. Thankfully, she only whimpered fretfully when his large hands scooped between her warm back and her mother's cold chest. Poor kid was probably too tired to struggle, he reasoned, wanting to kill the cultists himself for putting the baby half-devil in such a weakened state.

Dante rose and turned back to Lady slowly, trying unsuccessfully to wrap the infant into her blanket tighter. He curbed his growl of frustration when she squirmed and loosened the blanket again, her tiny hands waving feebly. It really wouldn't do to upset the kid, especially if she let out with an inhuman shriek. _'Crying babies are bad enough, but crying devil babies? Gimme the tranquilizer darts instead.' _He couldn't stand upset kids. He found himself wondering how he'd raise her, his own childhood had been fucked up to say the least, and he definitely wasn't a role model. Damn, she'd squirmed out this time too. What did it take to keep a kid still these days?

"Here, let me." The white-haired hunter raised an eyebrow at his brunette counterpart, reluctant to let her have the half-devil baby that was barely filling his hands. He wasn't worried about Lady mistreating her, not by a long shot, but he didn't know if she knew what she was doing. Tch, like he had anything to worry about? _'Hell, she could drop this little cutie on her head and it'd be okay. 'Cept for the bad reactions on both sides.'_ The half-devil handed over his infantile charge anyway.

"You don't have to tighten the blanket, Dante, you just have to move it up around her head better. Like this, see?" Blue eyes still darkened by regrets and rimmed by rapidly fading red watched observantly as the human woman's small, pale peach-skinned hands rearranged the grey and stained blanket deftly. Lady's eyes rose to meet his, seeing that he had gotten the idea, but she didn't try to hand the baby back to him. Maybe she didn't trust him. Maybe that was for the better. Maybe he'd slip up again and the only thing that would save her from a berserk son of Sparda would be that mistrust.

"Whatever, Lady." Trying to blow off his worries with a tough guy act, with a carefree nature as he walked out of the dank and disgusting room. She was on his heels, he knew without looking, without smelling, without even sensing her energy or the child's, that she'd at least follow him out of the building. The cops thought they were a team afterall, and they had to keep things looking smooth.

Hunters had to make it all look calm, like no big deal. Like they weren't driving themselves mad with the horrors they'd been forced to see. Dante wasn't the best hunter out there because he did a crappy job. He might not always have played by the rules with his opponents, but he always did play by the rules with those he protected. It was probably the only thing he and his old man had shared, a compassion and understanding for those weaker than them.

Backtracking through the ruined townhouse with its dead inhabitants in silence, the devil hunter shook his white-haired head to keep from quagmiring himself in a brood. He still had a job to do, and his number one rule was to not mope on a mission. Number two was to do the thing with style and number three to do it right the first time. Demon-hunting wasn't a profession where you got the chance to try and try again. If you failed, you hit the big one. _'Besides, I hate losing. It's so not very stylish.'_

They'd reached the entrance hallway now, and the half-devil's sensitive hearing was ringing with the sirens outside. He seriously hoped the kid wouldn't wail like a banshee or do anything unnatural. Glancing back out of apprehension, the half-devil saw his human – and professed devil-hater – partner cuddling and shushing the inhuman child with hands that suddenly seemed so delicate, like the actions were normal.

His white hair fell over his puzzled blue eyes as his head swiveled back around, facing the wooden front door and pulling it open. He tried to rationalize the sight; he just didn't expect it, that was all. Not that he thought Lady couldn't care about a helpless child, just that he'd never really seen her soft and unguarded like that. _'And here I thought I knew her, thought I was ready to pounce on her and date her dizzy.'_ His booted feet stepped out and down the few stone steps, into the front lawn, confidence in each stride. This was normal procedure. He had to keep that in mind, or everything might be blown as not normal.

There were at least three squad cars with flashing lights parked on the short and well-kept lawn of the townhouse, as well as the chief's unmarked car. He'd known that before exiting the cultists' sick house of horrors, but visually seeing them laid out on the lawn was helping him sketch out an escape plan. Dante hoped they wouldn't need to do that, he didn't need the headache and fuss that would cause. The chief had spotted his bright red coat and began heading over to them, probably thinking they were injured. No more time to think, then, just time to act.

Lady seemed to have the infant half-devil under control behind him, so Dante figured he should be able to handle dealing with this police guy for once. He could at least do that right today. The half-devil extended his hand toward the man as they met, clasping hands to signal that the job was complete. And then came the part he usually left to his business partners, those stupid follow-up questions.

&

Lady still wasn't sure why she was cuddling a half-devil baby in her arms, aside from a general need to protect. And she wasn't sure why she'd let Dante walk off with the chief of police to finish up the business part of the job. Business and follow-up procedures were half the reason she worked with the guy, he really couldn't handle that part on his own. Not for lack of knowing what to do really, just that he could never muster the proper attitude for serious business affairs. At least, not that she'd seen.

Thinking on it as she cuddled the half-devil baby that was cradled in her human hands, Lady supposed that she knew he could be serious and mature if he wanted to be. But that was the entire problem, Dante was childish because he wanted to be…what? Surely he didn't want to be thought of as a child. _'Maybe he likes how it causes people to underestimate him, maybe he thinks it hides his demon nature…'_ She grimaced, suddenly realizing she knew very little about the adult half-devil outside of a job setting.

But then, she'd chosen to remain ignorant of him after Temen-ni-gru had fallen and the demons remaining had been cleared up. Was she regretting that? Why now, when there'd already been a three-year business partnership? _'I'm tired and a bit bewildered from this day and this job, that's all. It's nothing permanent, and I don't need to get to know him. We're in business together, that's all, the old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' deal.'_ But Lady's logic didn't stop her mind from wandering.

Trying to distract herself enough to make the 'sudden, unnecessary, and irrational' interest in her partner disappear, the brunette hunter found herself focusing her bi-colored eyes on the baby she was carrying. She admitted to herself silently that the little girl blew all her suspicions and fears of devils away, and not just because she had a cute, round, and full-cheeked face. Nor was it completely due to the way her tired eyes opened to reveal ivy green eyes that shimmered with their own light and had an open emotional depth unfound in most adults of either species. Maybe it was the sense of utter helplessness she got from the child, not a feeling she was used to finding in anyone, human or demon.

It was so rare in her line of work to have someone truly, openly need assistance and be really grateful for any help offered. Even human children mistrusted her because of her rough appearance and short, no bull-crap, business manner. That had to be it, she decided, looking at the half-devil girl's wide, slightly frightened eyes. _'I'm so unused to being loved and wanted without strings attached that it's drawing me in.'_ And the brunette hunter couldn't claim that she was resisting in the slightest.

Seeing that her partner had moved away to talk with the chief of police by the squad cars, Lady held the child closer, descending the steps from the cultists' house cautiously. She wanted to get the kid out of there, but as a hunter she knew that acting hurried or panicked wasn't going to help her cover, so the best thing to do was take things one step at a time. _'Baby steps, huh? That'll have a whole new meaning in a few months.'_ She suppressed the trickle of trepidation that swam up in her mind at the thought of raising the half-devil in cradled gently in her calloused hands. She'd spent so long eliminating life, was it possible for her to raise one?

Thinking of starting life and glancing down at the half-devil she was holding made her mind wander back over to the topic of her demon-hunting partner. She wasn't dumb, blind, or deaf, and she knew he had a thing for her, so to speak, something he'd been harboring since the tower. But she didn't know if he was just being a hormone driven young man like other human men or if he was lusting for her as some kind of odd appetizer for a demon. For that matter, was she just a sexual prize for him, something to be tasted and trashed, or were his feelings more heartfelt, was what he wanted permanent?

'_Not that it matters in the end, I don't feel anything for him…Even if I did, I have to fulfill my vow. Can't fall in love with a devil if I'm going to destroy them.'_ The thought of Dante dying unnerved her quiet a bit, sending a surge of rage through her frame, but she accredited it to knowing how helpless the world would be without a Sparda to defend it. Human hunters were capable of turning away the grunts, the regular demons that came across, but none of them had the stamina to hold out against legions of demons or any high-ranking devils if such an attack came.

Not for the first time, she wondered about Dante's parents; Why had Sparda chosen to defend humanity, why had Eva chosen to mate with him – _'Devils don't do marriage, I know that, and any human dating one has to be unorthodox'_ – why had the two of them chosen to have children, why had they chosen to leave such a dangerous legacy unfinished? Perhaps it had all been for the sake of humankind. But it seemed like a well-laid plan gone awry, since Sparda didn't seem the type to leave his family undeniably vulnerable, to leave loose ends, and no mother would want to die in front of her children.

She knew very little of Dante's past, though, so it all was speculation, even the idea that things might have been different if they had lived. Would she even know Dante and Vergil if their parents had lived, had gotten the chance to raise them? Lady doubted they would have gone to the tower, it might not even have been raised by Arkham under Sparda's watch. Caught in her ramblings, her bi-colored eyes focused blankly on her blue-eyed partner. She was walking past them now, untrained hands clasping the baby girl closer to her, whose much smaller hands grasped the thick fabric of her sweater. Giving no indication that she was listening to the two men, Lady continued trekking slowly across the pristine green lawn, towards her old Suzuki motorcycle.

"So then, there aren't any survivors, Mr. Dante? I'm not doubting your information, but that seems a bit out of line for an easy case."

"Look, I deal with these supernatural pests all the time. Trust me, all of them are capable of leaving no survivors. And wouldn't the cultists have gotten the death penalty anyways? Just look at it as the devil doing the dirty work for you."

"Mr. Dante, the job of the law is to exact full and proper justice. While it may be true that the suspected cultists were committing crimes, they would still have gotten a fair trial. This leaves no closure to the case, since we can't prove anything about the suspects to victims' loved ones, find any suppliers or associates through questioning, or vouch for the end of the murders and kidnappings; Supernatural involvement isn't an excuse."

"Look, buddy, it's just Dante, I ain't old. Second, my understanding is that job of the law is to protect the weak, which is what I do as a hunter. I don't question things, I just mop up the messes made by demons and their human cohorts. I can't do anything about who lives or dies before I get to a job."

"That's not exactly the type of answer I was looking for Mist… Dante. I at least need to know the details of what happened here, and any proof of the suspects' guilt."

"Sorry, but I've already told you everything I can, chief. The cultists were killed by some demon they'd gotten mixed up with, and the only captive they had had been tortured and died from injuries made by human hands. The lab they worked in is in the back of the house, door on the right at the end of the last hallway. You'll find all the bodies if you go through the house, and even the ashes and sand left behind by the demons."

"I thought there was just the one demon."

"Just the one that I fought. The sand is leftover from a low level one that had been summoned by the cultists, probably to fight the first one. Demons kill each other off too."

Lady was mildly surprised to hear Dante speaking professionally – _'As much as is possible for him anyway, there's still that arrogant 'I've got it covered attitude' in his words'_ – although she'd known he could, since he hadn't always had a partner or a business agent like Enzo or Nevan to negotiate and manage for him. More surprising was that he seemed to have left out the little survivor in her arms from the debriefing report. Not that it mattered much, and she could see where it would be better to leave the half-devil out. As hunters were fond of saying, the less the civilians knew, the less they'd get in the way of professionals.

Shifting the baby over a shoulder and cupping her blanket's bottom with one small, strong hand for support, the brunette hunter threw her left leg over her motorcycle, preparing to mount fully and ride off. They hadn't discussed it, but previous experience from working with her white-haired partner told her that he'd want to meet back up at Devil May Cry.

"Excuse me, ma'am, aren't you the other hunter that we hired? You need to give a report to the chief too, for clarification." Damn, she'd been so preoccupied with getting out that she'd missed one of the deputies walking up beside her. Vaguely she thought of silencing him with a round to the head, but manslaughter wasn't on her list of things to have added to her official record.

"My partner and I would have the same account, so it's really just a waste of time for us both to report. And one of us needs to get back to the shop and start cleaning up from the mission." Well, that was all true, at least for the most part. They'd witnessed a few different things, but they would have corroborated on the report anyway, to make things easier, and she did need to get back to Devil May Cry. _'The sooner the better, too, because neither of us knows what to do with this helpless baby right now.'_ Unfortunately for the female hunter, the baby her upper body was hiding from the deputy chose that exact moment to whimper loudly, throwing a grenade into the group's seamless and thus-far-perfect departure.

The deputy's eyebrows shot up high, then lowered to complete his stern, resolute facial expression as he approached the bike-mounted young woman and her cargo.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to get off the motorcycle and report with me to the chief."

"Officer, I'm really sorry, the kid's sick. She's suffering from…mistreatment, malnutrition, and anxiety. It really would be better if you could let me take her to a hospital to get treated as soon as possible." Go with plan A and plaster on the cute, pleading, desperate woman face. _'Should be fool-proof, especially with this rookie.'_ A part of her was secretly proud of her acting skills, while another part grudgingly admitted that she'd unfairly honed them on Dante first. The half-devil was, hands-down, a definite sucker for pretty and/or helpless women.

She raised her silent cheers when the deputy's hard face cracked just a bit. Glancing at his commander, the deputy quickly waved for her to go on, sighing to himself as though he knew he'd been had. Revving her favored Suzuki up and backing slowly around and off the untainted lawn the cultists had kept, Lady's last view of the job site was of the blue-eyed half-devil detaching himself from the chief of police he'd stalled for so long. She tried to ignore how her chest swelled with pride and something else as the thought struck her that he'd done it so patiently and willingly for her sake.

Regardless of what her feelings and relationship to Dante were becoming, she didn't have time for them. She had another half-devil that needed her so much more. One with whom a caring relationship was not just a want, but a need. As she wound through the city's streets for the baby's safety, Lady found that she wasn't really unhappy with her current 'mission'. Why should she complain about learning more of the half-devils that had come into her life? Everything she was dealing with now was temporary, and she would move on with new knowledge and experience to utilize. Nothing to worry about at all.

**Fuyuko: I know, I know, I was bad and didn't update for more than a month. But really, I did warn all of y'all at the first chapter.**

**Lady: Doesn't make up for it, slacker.**

**Fuyuko: Quiet you. You and that half-demon boy-toy of yours are part of the reason I had such a hard time finishing this chapter. Uncooperative main characters, awkward business/cop scenes, and the half-hearted theme of hands as character comparisons. Blegh. Anyways, go ahead and leave a review or flame or whatnot. I'll be here.**

**Lady: Admit it, you got distracted by freaking solitaire.**

**Fuyuko: Did not! And de Nile is not a river in Egypt! Parting note of extreme thanks to all my readers and reviewers for putting up with this fic and its sporadic updates. Special shout of thanks to The Tyrant Hamster for another praise-filled review, I'm glad you liked my idea on the devil forms of the sons of Sparda and the horrible thing I did to Dante and the baby. Apparently, thinking does make my writing better. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Fuyuko: It's like smoking, this story, I can't quit, I always come back even after a month. Good thing it's not actually harming me. **

**Dante: Yay for you. Can't say the same here, I think the second-hand is killing me slowly.**

**Fuyuko: …You're a demon. You come from the old brimstone and fire city of hell. Exactly how can anything, least of smoke, kill you? Besides, if you live long enough to finish the fic for me, I promise to have a touching silence in your honor. During which I promise not to envision you in chains and a skimpy outfit.**

**Dante: Gee, thanks for the mockery. I'll call Vergil and tell him he has a run for his money. **

**Fuyuko: I'm gonna have to have Disclaimer-Bot accept that award for me, I'm too valuable (hated) to be seen in public.**

**Disclaimer-Bot: I am honored to accept such a title in my author chick's magnanimous name. I am also honored to disclaim any rights she ludicrously thinks she has to DMC or any of its affiliated characters. I must mention that in her sane nanoseconds the author chick is aware that full rights belong to Capcom. I am certain that if you understood any of this, you have the capacity to understand the following fiction.**

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle**

**&**

Having to detour through the city's main, clogged, and traffic light-ridden streets caused Lady to arrive later than she thought humanly necessary. Actually, the traffic was the worst part of it, since she was more than a bit worried about riding around on a motorbike with an infant. She knew she was cranky because of the worry, but she also couldn't help being exasperated with such a baseless fear. _'Seriously, the poor little thing could fall from the Eiffel tower and be unharmed. More or less anyway.'_ It didn't really help that her competitive partner had gotten to take the highway, and was clearly already at his office.

Stifling her sigh, the brunette hunter wheeled her bike around the right side of the building to a small alley where Dante kept his own motorcycle. She had to suppress a wry grin at the sight of his newest toy. In return for his early and unexpected – but not unwelcome – help to her in fighting demons and setting up a shop in the south of town, a younger Lady had offered to teach the demon how to ride her motorcycle. It had amused her to see him try to use it at first, especially because he was so enthusiastic about it. Like she'd given him the greatest gift in the world.

Sometimes, she caught herself wondering if he had found the machinery itself to be the great part or if he'd reveled in the level of companionable time the lessons required. _'Regardless, it looks like teaching him how to ride a motorcycle was a good thing.'_ Her red and blue eyes twinkled slightly as she thought that her greatest reward for the lessons was the fact that she was allowed to ride every new bike he had to get. He trusted her judgment in the quality of them, so it was really just a test drive, but it meant she could ride the nice bikes that she could never have afforded. And she was not going to wonder how he had the money to buy them or why he always had to get a new one. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, as they said.

Walking slowly back around the brick building, she noticed that the bundle in her arms had grown eerily quiet. Panicking more than she should have over a half-devil spawn, Lady pulled back the blanket from the child's green-skinned head. Eyes that had never lied about her emotions worriedly locked onto the baby's face, relaxing somewhat as she realized the child was just asleep. _'For a moment there, I thought…Geez, what would I have told Dante if the kid had…what would I have done?'_

It was bothering her less and less how attached she was to the baby girl. Half-devil or human, there was something inexplicable that drew her to a helpless child. Maybe it was because she was a woman and the mothering instinct was – supposedly – natural. Maybe she was just desperate for someone to love her after more than three years of loneliness in the wake of her family's tragedy. Yeah, that really explained why she was attached to two people she probably should have feared.

She grimaced a bit at the doorway to the run down office, finally admitting that she did feel something for Dante that wasn't savior syndrome or hate. She was not going to try to name it though, fearing that the feeling would spread, like a disease, if she didn't rein it in now. It was probably too late, had probably been too late the first time she'd had 'civil' conversation with him. Half-devils, she was finding, seemed to have an uncanny knack for worming under her skin and getting cozy. _'Not literally, I hope, because that's just gross. I know devils possess people, but I'd rather not have the skin crawling horror movie clichés.'_

Lady shifted the un-named baby girl's weight to the crook of her right arm, raising her left to bang a fist on the solid oak. Predictably, her violent knock never actually connected, as the door swung inward to reveal her white-haired partner from earlier. His darkened blue eyes and stony face betrayed to her that, while he probably hadn't cried anymore, he was still distraught over what had happened on the cultist case. As with the loss of his twin to hell three years ago, she could sympathize with his pain; having suffered through her father's lies and manipulations, and trying to reconcile her dead mother's memory.

"Welcome, Lady. Come in, sit down, but not on my chair, and get used to clutter."

"I'm already used to your lackadaisical house-keeping, Dante. It's not going to work out when this little girl's living here. Kids love to get dirty and play with anything in reach."

"Who said she was living here? I'm not a babysitter, I don't have the time, the patience, or, well… look, it just ain't gonna happen."

She gave him a flat look as she stepped across the threshold into his combined house and office. It was true bachelor pad, she knew this, but Lady also knew that things had to change, and if high and half-demon didn't like it, that was just a cryin' shame. _'Really, he can't have expected me to raise her; I don't know the first thing about human children, let alone those with demon blood!'_ The brunette knew it wasn't something to get incensed over, but it wasn't what she'd expected from him after the trials of this day. She deposited herself and the baby girl on the high-backed, green-cushioned, wooden chair behind the dark wood desk brazenly. The narrowed and sulking blue gaze she earned was only the beginning of her victory, as far as Lady was concerned.

She wasn't stupid, she knew how far to push her partner, and finding out exactly which buttons to prod for a specific reaction was never too hard for her. She resisted the urge to shake her brunette head in that moment, even if it was utterly ridiculous how easy her white-haired friend was to manipulate. An action like that would be pushing the wrong buttons, and if she wanted this to work, she'd have to hit all the right ones.

"It ain't gonna happen? You have some serious balls telling me that Dante, after everything else that's gone down today. Or maybe you don't. Maybe 'it ain't gonna happen' because you're afraid."

"Afraid? Huh, I'm not afraid. I just can't deal with kids. I just don't like them."

"Well, I don't like kids either. Why did we rescue her if neither of us likes kids? She's a kid."

"Did you hit your head, Lady? We rescued her because she needs a home, needs care. Needs food and toys, needs a family… lots of stuff."

"That's funny, because if that's why you saved her, why can't you give her that? Why save someone if you can't give them everything they need? Unless you trust an orphanage not to be nosy." Hit a good button there. His sharp blue eyes had betrayed him as always, guilt rising in them even as he hid it and tried to form another argument. She knew he was falling fast, though, she had plenty of experience as a son of Sparda interpreter. _'If this actually goes as planned, and it will, I promise I won't dump everything on him. He's making it too easy.'_

"An orphanage? Now I know you've been whacked a good one. There is no way I'm handing her over to the social services. Bunch of cracks might not know she was a demon, but that wouldn't make her any less miserable." Yep, she'd passed step one and step two, insult him and piss him off, now there was just step three.

Dare him to do it. Challenge him. The only thing Dante the demon hunter falls for faster than a damsel in distress is a challenge of his skill. "So?"

"So what? I made my point, I ain't raising her. You do it, you're the woman." Lady tried very hard to ignore that, but it galled her when he was like that. _'Sexist pig! Just because I'm a woman does not mean I'm a baby raiser!'_ She would definitely have to shoot him later. Maybe in the lower regions this time, so he'd get the point.

"You're right. I am the woman, so obviously I can raise her better than you. Any baby should be easy for me to handle, half-devil or no." She was leaning back slightly in his chair, knowing full well that the nonchalant air it gave her would make him rise to the challenge that much faster.

"Whoa, what? I didn't say you'd do a better job. Sorry, babe, but nobody does anything better than I do. Hell, because she's a half-devil, I could do way better for her than you could. Yeah, I can definitely handle taking care of her, I just don't want to, that's all."

"Prove it." Hook, line and sinker, the fish was in the net. He glared at her for a second, his demon instincts boiling at being challenged, his human side irked at the trap he was sure he was walking into. He crossed his arms, huffing loudly, as if exasperated, and for some reason, she hoped it was with himself and not her. _'It's only because we've known each other so long, been friends…'_ But her heart wasn't convinced by that answer anymore. She rocked the chair back onto all four legs, wishing it was that easy to steady her thoughts too.

"Alright, Lady, you win. But you better get ready to lose, because I am going to do better than anyone else."

"Great Dante. Now, curb your competitive male streak and agree with this: We raise her. Together. Here. Where there are plenty of devils and powers to protect her, where we can both have all the weapons, tools, and space we need to raise a half-devil baby that neither of us knows anything about."

She was definitely imagining that look in his eyes, the one that told her he wasn't just excited with her idea of sharing responsibility for the kid. Sure, he'd hit on her before, even still did it, but she'd never thought he was serious. Just horny, like every other male that had ever lasted more than two minutes in her company. She shrugged it off mentally, it was just another thing to deal with in this new life she'd thrust them both into. If they were going to raise this baby girl together, they'd have a lot of opportunities to butt heads or to join minds over a few things they'd both been avoiding.

Dante sat down on the back corner of his desk, the shadows laying there making his face look more serious than a man his age should have had to look. But then, she was pretty sure devils didn't measure maturity and those things by age. It was one of those few things they did that she saw as logical. It wasn't your age that made you a valuable member of society, or even your raw potential. It was your choices. His left hand stroked the baby's head, mussing the soft, fine black hair crowning it.

"Deal. We'll do this together, like the tower." Lady smiled, a rare sight from her, there'd been so little to smile about in the past few years of her life. She couldn't deny it, she was happy, excited even, at his acceptance of her deal. It didn't even matter to her if it was because he'd been won over so easily, if it was because they really were going to help the baby girl she already cared about, or if it was because she'd be with him more often. She was excited. She was also scared. Nothing had ever been this easy. Nothing had ever been this new and strange. Fate had a way of messing things up that didn't fit in with the norms.

&

Having to deal with the repercussions of his actions wasn't something that Dante was used to doing, and it always ticked him off. He wasn't the strategist, that was Vergil's forte, the brains and brawn never seemed to have been split evenly. He knew they had been though, knew he was more than capable of working through his self-created problems, he was just too, well, him to do it. Not lazy, but not really possessed of a great work ethic either. If there wasn't some end in it he really wanted, then he wasn't going to use up the means.

But this time, there'd been no avoiding it, especially when Lady had come into the shop right on his tail. _'Well, not right on my tail, but she had to have been speeding, and maybe run a few red lights to get here that fast.'_ There was a surge of protective instinct there, mingled with unreasonable human fear for the safety of the baby half-devil he'd let his partner take with her. Squishing that down, Dante found that he couldn't be too angry with the idea of the brunette speeding 'home'. He did once tell her he loved a fast woman, and nothing in him denied the thought that her speeding to see him was pleasant.

At least this time he'd had a chance to make a cognitive decision. He wanted to say that last one didn't count, that he'd been too out of it to know the difference, to grasp the situation, but he knew that would never be the truth. No demon was unaware of their environment, could ever claim not to have know what was going on. _'I've got to get my mind off of that. It's over, and I know the only thing I can't do is change the past…'_ He'd go tell his devil arms the new situation, some of them would need as much time as possible to acclimate themselves to the idea.

He sighed, turning down a side hallway just past his infamous bathroom door. Dante could take his mind off of it, but he would never forget it. Devils never cried, but they never forgot their pains either. He'd never been able to rid himself of the memory of his mother's death, even if he'd been able to suppress the details during his teenage years in Los Angeles. …Maybe it wouldn't be that way for this little girl.

It's not like the white-haired man hadn't thought of how to care for her when he and his partner had taken her from the cultists' home, it was just that it hadn't seemed as intricate at the time. He wasn't father of the year material, heck he barely knew what the word paternal was all about…how in hell was he supposed to help out?

Still walking through the house portion of his office building, the half-devil man grimaced over the thought that maybe he'd done the wrong thing in accepting Lady's challenge. Sure, he genuinely wanted to help the kid, and Lady was right, there really wasn't anyone else they could trust to do it. _'But it ain't gonna help her at all if I'm only doing it out of regret and some bet'_.

Like all devils, she would sense those emotions, and would eventually understand that he was only raising her out of guilt. He'd rather give her to regular humans that let that scar her forever. He'd have to get over it, would have to learn to love her as his own, no easy task considering he really wasn't ready for this, and frankly, it went against half of his nature. Devils did not raise orphans. They killed young that couldn't survive on their own.

Thinking of that, his priority one right now ought to be warning his devil arms of the current situation, and well, warning them not to do anything that would harm Lady or the new arrival. Some of them he could trust to treat the two as houseguests, but others, like Cerberus, would need to be ordered to leave the two fragile beings alone. It wasn't that he thought the ice-dog demon would attack them; it was just that he didn't want a fight between Lady and Cerberus if one of them got too defensive. It was Cerberus's job to protect Dante's 'domain', but sometimes the loyal demon took it too far.

'_Although it was funny when he had Enzo backed into that narrow alley across the way. Never seen chubby run so fast before._' Dante chuckled to himself as he turned the corner into his tiny kitchen. He'd never used it in all the time he'd held down shop here, even though his mother had taught the twins how to cook. That would probably change now. The kid wasn't going to be able to eat pizza, and Lady always wanted 'healthier' food. That was one thing that went over his head, pizza had plenty of nutrients, and if you could get 'em from one food, why would you want different ones?

Past the kitchen was a closet that he'd always found pointless before going to Temen-ni-gru and amassing his group of devil arms. It was bigger than the kitchen, and didn't even have a coat rack built into it. He'd used to wonder if it was a closet at all, and not some kind of tiny guestroom for throwing unwanted company into. The white-haired hunter had to admit that the empty space had definitely come in handy when he'd brought back his weapons. He could keep Ebony and Ivory in his desk and Rebellion on pegs behind it, but he hadn't wanted the almost alive weapons left out like that.

Especially not Agni and Rudra, who were not just a talkative pair of pains, but way too curious for their own good. They had a bad habit of coming out of their blade forms and getting into everything, which really meant they made huge messes for him to cleanup. _'If they weren't so damn useful in battle I'd get rid of them. I'm serious. They're not worth their weight otherwise.'_ He knew he wouldn't do anything like that to any of his devil arms, they'd be drifters without another devil to command them, and it was his job as their current master to protect them as much as it was theirs to give him powers beyond his own.

Dante banged his fist on the door of the no longer empty nor useless closet, not wanting to barge in on his devil arms. They were baffled by the concepts of 'rude' and 'privacy', believing that such concerns were unnecessary for him to bother with in regards to them. Demon vassals, it seemed to him, didn't get half the respect they deserved, even if might did make right.

He really shouldn't have been surprised when Nevan yanked the door open barely a half-second after his knock, what with all the broadcasting of emotions he'd done that day. He was, though, because while they might not have come to check on him, the rapid response and rapt attention were clear signs that his devil arms had been primed to help out as long as he'd been wailing around with his emotions. True, it was their job to guard his life with their own, but they usually didn't get riled up over things they recognized as human reactions. Most of the time, he'd managed to grind out of Beowulf, devil servants only responded to signals of physical pain or the rage of battle.

"Sugar? I'm no fool to a face, and yours says whatever's gone done with the mission is tearing you up. Talk to Nevan and your devil arms, sweet." Funny how she could switch from seductress to soothing without really changing anything besides her tone. He really did wonder how she'd learned to be so, well, human.

"It's nothing for you guys to get worked up over, just that, well…look, we couldn't save any humans. Or well, we did, kinda, but, um, she's, it's not quite that simple, and well, Lady," he choked off a frustrated growl over his pointless stammering, "Lady thinks it would be best if we took care of the survivor here, and, I know you won't think this necessary, but I wanted to let you all know that Lady and she will be staying here. For a while. Maybe a long while, I don't know how things will turn out yet."

Cerberus, having come inside when his master returned, was eyeing the irritated tapping motion of Dante's foot. Dante made a mental note to unwind with the hellhound in Central Park after midnight. Before he could get much farther than that, his favorite devil arms spoke up, in that annoying two-part fashion of theirs.

"But, master Dante, why does this distress you?"

"Yes master, why? Is the survivor a demon?"

"Agni! Do not insult our master! He would never allow a demon to live! And he wouldn't bring one here to heal either."

"But, brother, what if it tricked him into caring for it? We should rid our master of this burden!"

"If the master could not kill it, how do you think we could? You insult our master again?"

"I do not insult him! I am simply saying that it is our duty as his vassals to spare him the trouble of dealing with such a demon. Surely a trickster is weak enough to be intimidated into proper behavior in our master's domain!" Arguing from makeshift shelves he'd put up to hold their weapon forms, the twin scimitars were starting to burden their master with a classic headache.

"Yo, guys, I'm glad you're concerned but, really it's nothing for you two to get involved with, Lady and I…"

"See brother? You have insulted him."

"Rudra, how can you know this? He does not feel insulted, merely that human emotion for when one is being disturbed from one's intentions."

"He is forbidding us to help with his troubles! You have insulted him."

"I! How can I have insulted him? I was not jumping to conclusions about the survivor."

"Yes you were!" The head massage Nevan kept on standing offer wouldn't even help now, they'd degenerated too far, bickering and shouting for the sake of being loud, of being Agni and Rudra.

"No I wasn't!" _'I don't care who was, or was not, or whatever, I have got to stop this before my gorgeous head explodes or turns into an oozing mass of brain-dead soup!'_ If there was an omnipotent deity out there besides the false one called Mundus, he'd better be planning some good karma to go along with this for a later time. Or else Dante might have to whip out his forty-fives and go crazier than he was going to be if he endured much more of the devil brother's arguing. The growl built back up in his throat, and his blue eyes leaked a red glow as he glared up at the offending scimitars.

"Shut up! Goddamn, just shut up both of you! Gragh! I can't even get a coherent thought finished with you two carryin' on like that! And for your information, I do not need help with the survivor, which reminds me, she is a half-devil, so all of you need to be on good behavior and remember not to freak out about the extra devil's presence! Got it? Good. …Good God, assuming there is one, my fucking head." Having finally gotten his words in edgewise, having forced them through like he would Rebellion into a demon's body, the devil hunter turned to leave. That could definitely have gone better, but for the moment, he could give a crap less. He really hoped the kid wouldn't be a screamer; he could not take a screaming half-devil baby on top of the mayhem his devil arms tended to cause on their own.

Maybe the better part of valor would be to convince Lady that they needed to raise the kid somewhere that wasn't already in chaos. Sure Nevan and Beowulf were sensible and controlled, but the other three practically eclipsed that fact, even if they meant well and weren't actively trying to scare away his landlord, his agents, or destroy his house and sanity. Now, what was it he was going to do after telling the devil arms about the kid? He still couldn't think straight…He shrugged, stumbling back to the front office, where he could smell Lady.

She'd know what needed to be done, surely there was something she thought should be fixed up for the kid. Or for her. She had this way of forcing him to cleanup whenever she came over to Devil May Cry for more than hour or two. Enzo and the guys at the bar said it was because women like her were trying to move in and settle down guys like him, said they changed your home and then you. He supposed it could be true, Eva had changed the atmosphere of Sparda's many homes, even led him to purchase a few closer to civilization. And, well, he couldn't deny that both his parents had seemed different, happier, and more alive when they'd still been alive together while the twins were toddlers.

Dante made it back to the front office, and followed Lady's recent movements over to the bathroom in the back. Didn't smell like urine, so she probably wasn't in need of privacy. Didn't explain what she was doing in there, but he'd learned long ago never to question what females of any species did in the bathroom. _'"Best policy is to just not ask, and spare yourself any unpleasant details, kid," ' _had been Grue's advice when he was still parading around Los Angeles as Tony Redgrave. The real Tony, of course, had later tracked down the white-haired half-devil who'd posed as him, and agreed with much of the old man's wisdom when told about Dante's exploits and contacts within that time frame.

Lady was, he saw after pushing open the ajar door, leaning over the sink and her top was soaked through. His first thought was stereotypical of his gender_'…Ah, that's what a devil like me wants to see',_ his second was a more practical _'Wait, what the heck is that crazy woman doing?'_, and his third thought was the all-encompassing _'Who cares? As long as I don't get told to help or get shot, I am not who'_. His white-hair brushed the wooden door frame as his leaned against it, smiling slightly at the very un-Ladylike scene before him.

Honestly, although he knew damn well she wasn't all guns and smoke and blowing up demons, he had yet to see Lady engaged in anything that could be labeled as domestic, unless you counted the time she threatened to put riddle all his good leather pants with bullets if he didn't pick them up off the floor. This, then, was a cause for national observance, as the brunette was currently holding a half-devil girl in the crook of one submerged arm, and wiping blood and grime of the little girl with a soapy rag in the other.

He had the split second urge to tell her how cute it was. He nixed that when it occurred to him he'd either be told to help, forced to get out, or be thought to be suggesting that he liked the idea of her and him and domestic. With the kid. He was just about to leave and ignore that odd thought, and never confess to having seen any of this, when his hunting partner called out to him.

"You know, I'm not going to ask you to help me clean her up or anything, but it would be nice if you'd find something for her to wear. I am not putting her back in those blankets."

"I don't think I have any onesy suits or whatever around here. And I doubt any shirts of mine would fit, or not scare her with the smell."

"..Did you just imply that you stink? Never mind, I don't want to see your foot go in your mouth any further. Look, just find me an old sheet or something. A clean, old sheet."

"I didn't mean that smell. I meant, ok, I did mean my smell, but not in the sense that I stink. Because I don't. Unless by stink you mean smell like a sexy beast with great cologne. Because then I do."

"Dante. Just shut up and get something for her to wear until I can go buy proper baby clothes." She was smiling, she'd found his explanation funny, even if he hadn't explained anything, and even if she knew what he really did smell like and knew he'd probably meant something to do with demonic senses when he'd been worried about the kid having to smell him. He went to a closet just inside the bathroom door, where he kept old linens, and pulled out one that didn't look or smell grimy to him. She had taken the kid out of the sink, and was cradling the cooing child to her right shoulder while reaching out for his red towel.

"You know, she isn't going to like being saturated in a foreign demon's scent. She won't understand it, and she won't recognize me, and she'll just panic. Or at least fuss constantly. Let me get a different towel." He had one in his hand before she could protest, holding its fluffy white mass out to her. She took it and began gently patting the half-devil baby dry.

"You know, we can't call her kid, or baby, or the baby, or the child, or the little girl. And we don't know her real name, so we ought to just rename her now, before she starts to think she is the child or little girl or something like that."

"I think, dears, that you should give the little cookie a devil name. It's clear she survived a great trial, maybe Isthag, for 'one who overcomes'."

"The child is a mere half-devil, succubus, she is not worthy of a true devil's name. Call her 'Hagukshl'. It is befitting her station in life." Really, even Beowulf in on naming the little child? Dante had never seen anything stranger in his life. Apparently Lady was finding the whole concept of any of his devil arms naming the half-devil girl she was protecting somewhat disturbing. And judging by the glares she saw Dante and Nevan give Beowulf, 'Hagukshl' was not much of a name.

"Perhaps the baby should be named for her features, as many of our kind are." Cerberus, as she'd come to recognize the multi-sized and three-headed dog, had the most logical idea of all the devils. But that gave her an even better idea. Dante and Vergil had been named for people their father had known, and for their approaches to life, although she doubted that had been purposeful. She herself had been renamed for who she was, a fiery lady.

"Dante, why don't we name her something to do with how she came to be."

"What, name her half-devil like Beowulf said? I don't think so Lady."

"No, why don't we name her something like hope or promise, or I don't know, just something meaningful, like that."

"You could name her Giselle, cupcake. It means pledge, which is close enough to promise, and the name has a nice flair to it."

"Giselle?" Lady and Dante echoed each other, exchanged brief glares which softened to mutual agreement, it was a nice name…and really, what else could they get off the top of their heads, even with the help of his devil arms? Besides, it had a meaning for her new life, and maybe for theirs, which was better than naming her for her past.

"Giselle. I like it. You like it, kid?" Dante's blue eyes were looking into the child's green ones. Almost searching for an earnest response. Maybe he got it, Lady wasn't sure. But she was sure the kid had smiled at him. Maybe this would turn out alright.

**&**

**Fuyuko: Sweet Ghibli (Studio Ghibli has invaded my mind) giblets! At last it is finished! And many thanks to Hester for her review, since I couldn't thank her for her high praise in a PM. Sorry about the long intro and wait, blame Dante. It's all his fault.**

**Dante: According to you and every other woman I've ever known, it's always my fault. Except for mom. **

**Fuyuko: As your shrink, I have two things to say; 1. Your mom doesn't count. And 2. You've known women? Aside from an obvious oedipal complex, I thought you were incapable of such awareness. **

**Dante: Ew. I do not have a thing for my mom. Or Trish, because she looks like mom. You know what? Why don't these people save me the trouble of dealing with your crap and review already? And hey, check out this for DMC4 greatness, including the anime promo at the bottom: _http / www . capcom . co . jp / devil4 / main . html_, just take out the spaces. Who's that Nero brat? Vergil? C'mon, man, get back to normal.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Fuyuko: Ok, hopefully I was able to get this one out on time to you people, but with my college schedule it's unlikely. Also I changed the format of this chapter a bit, trying something new. Tell me what you think. **

**Lady: Your college schedule? Please. It's more like your college unscheduled. You're just a procrastinating bum. **

**Fuyuko: I resemble that. However, it is true that I'm busy, or at least kept working hard on my major. Never ever jump into the science field, kiddies, it is like signing your creative self over to the gallows. Disclaimer-Bot? **

**Disclaimer-Bot: Of course, author chick. Issuing standard disclaimer that the author chick, Fuyuko, does not own Devil May Cry or any of the series affiliated trademarks and/or characters. She does, however, own Giselle and other original characters. She fears the loss of her capability to create vast amounts of original ideas. **

**& **

**Devil in the Cradle **

**& **

"Dante, where did you put those child-safety door locks I picked out?" This was definitely not one place she'd never imagined herself in. Especially not with two half-demons and an amused Nevan in tow...baby shopping should not be that complicated or entertaining. Lady was torn between chagrin at being part of her entertainment and gratitude for the slight damage control the succubus was providing.

Now she knew why some of her married acquaintances kept even sleazy husbands, _'They really weren't kidding about needing the extra pair of hands,'_ at least. On the flip side of Nevan's aide, Dante was turning out to be as much help as he was hindrance on this outing. If she didn't know better, the brunette would have sworn he was trying to drive her insane on purpose.

She and Nevan had already had to drag him away from a bouncing walker, a mobile that had irritated his hearing with its song, and prevent his breaking several hundred dollars worth of teething rings and other toys – just so he could prove the flimsy items wouldn't hold up to their new daughter, as if she needed convincing. That was half the reason they were here, as within her first half-day, the little girl had already broken legs off of two chairs.

The worst incident today, though, had been with a toddler's educational talking and walking toy that had been labeled with a "try me" sticker. After Giselle and her adoptive father had "tried" it out, neither Lady nor the store manager could afford to let them anywhere near items labeled like that. The partially shredded toy was at the bottom of the cart, missing a few pieces and with its circuitry hanging out the bright blue backpack it had worn. Honestly, the two of them were a pair of over-reactive kids.

"Lady, I told you the baby locks aren't worth it. I don't remember a lot from then, but I do know that Vergil and I were busting out of those things before we were one." He'd reappeared by her side, toting an entire crib package with one arm. Nobody was watching, all the attendants had been a bit freaked out by their odd group, but she raised a brown brow at him anyway, silently telling him to act a bit normal. A pink stain, she wasn't sure if it was embarrassment or frustration, lit his high, pale cheekbones briefly before he complied, setting the box down with pretend strain at her feet.

_'Well, realistically, he is helping out a little bit,'_ the brunette admitted as she watched her partner walk over to the cart where she had strapped Giselle firmly into its seat. Nevan had laughed at the child's squirming earlier, commenting on how smart she was to try to get out of a trap, even if it was harmless and her attempt was a bit hopeless. Or at least, it had seemed hopeless for about thirty minutes, before the excited child had finally snapped the plastic clip-locks. Dante had been grinning at the sight of it, but he'd also automatically tied the straps together in a complex knot faster than Lady could see. Apparently, it had been too fast for their baby girl too, since she was still stumped over its intricacies.

"Cupcake, you probably should look into getting her some formula. I'm not clear on how cow's milk would affect her this early, and neither of us certainly aren't providing any, either. Sugar, unless you like having new ventilation in your head, put that Blue's Clues Find and Seek bottle down."

Bless the succubus, thought Lady as she turned her head to glare at the older half-devil troublemaker, and the extra set of eyes. He grinned winningly, the casual smirk somehow relaxing Lady's tense nerves instead of irritating them, like he'd reassured her he was just kidding around. She could handle that, she figured, as long as horseplay didn't cause someone to lose an eye. She needed him to be able to see when they left, because four people could not ride on one motorcycle, and he probably wouldn't let anyone else drive the Ninja, without a stink.

"So then, what do you think is best? I have no clue what I'm doing here, I barely cook normal food, and even then, I'm not a label-reader." Unspoken between Nevan and she was that asking the store employees was out of the question, all previous events considered. The two women began examining a couple different brands and types of formula each, neither one really paying attention to the two half-devils playing around at the nearby shopping cart. If Dante was keeping Giselle occupied with something other than escape from her 'imprisonment', then Lady was happy to let them giggle and patty-cake all day long.

Reunited with her 'daddy Dante', Giselle gurgled happily from the rapidly filling shopping cart's baby seat. Seeing that nobody was around but Lady and himself now, the elder half-demon grumbled something at her in return, nuzzling her face with his left cheek and a huff of air at the end of the exchange. Demons didn't exactly say 'I love you,' but they knew how to show it.

It was getting easier already to bond with her, too, but he couldn't quite go around saying he wasn't still upset at having orphaned her either, yet. Nevan, Bewulf, and he had a long discussion about it this morning, after the first night of she'd spent in the office. In the end, they'd both told him that he'd only done what he thought was right in that moment, and that the only thing he could do now was finish doing the real right thing. As senior devils, they knew enough of the customs and instincts to inform him that the best way for her to heal from that loss was to bond with another devil as a parent.

Namely himself, and, as Nevan pointed out, it might also go a long way to absolving his own guilt. They'd told him not to rush things, and commended him on being sensitive to the distress that saturating her in his scent would have caused her earlier. '_Baby steps,'_ the succubus had laughed at the irony, '_are the only way to do this. Get her used to your scent and presence through contact first, then let her do the rest on her own.'_

Beowulf had grunted agreement, saying it would be a less violent way of adopting her than was normal, but was permissable considering they were half. He'd also said Dante should use the time to bond in a devil manner first, using the language and gestures the baby had recognized from birth. For his part, Dante had accepted their advice graciously, and ignored the odd curiosity that had piqued at the mention of normal devil adoptions. He'd been certain they didn't do it at all, and he was a little interested in learning the truth, but the co-mention of violence put him off of asking.

Speaking of asking, Lady still was occupied with asking Nevan about which bottles and formula would be most suitable, so Dante grinned at his 'daughter' and unstrapped her from the baby seat. They wouldn't have to ask permission to look at toys again if they left quietly now. Tucking her against his red t-shirt and short black biker jacket, the white-haired devil snuck out from under the noses of the two women overseeing this 'mission'. Maybe baby shopping wasn't going to be so bad after all.

He'd tried to tell Lady this was a silly venture, that their new charge would be perfectly fine without extravagant baby care items, and really only needed a crib due to his lack of sleeping spaces. Lady had claimed his bed temporarily, of course, kicking him to the couch until he could get a cot for her, but there was still no ideal place for the baby they'd adopted to rest. Plus, his partner in child-rearing had almost literally put a gun in his face over the necessity for a high-chair, bottles, diapers, and even some toys, besides the crib. Consequently, he'd been wrangled into this trip, even though Nevan had already insisted in coming along as Lady's advisor on what baby devils needed.

Apparently, the two women thought Dante was completely clueless and useless when it came to caring for babies. _'So? At least I know how to keep the kid entertained,'_ ran the smug thought through the white-haired young man's head as he carried his adoptive daughter down aisles stocked full of tantalizing toys for tiny tots. They weren't going to stop here, as Dante wasn't stupid enough to risk his life over another "try me" toy, and personally found the damn things weren't worth his or his daughter's time.

Obviously, most humans misunderstood that simpler was better when it came to toys and their entertainment value. What kid really wanted to play with a doll that left nothing to be imagined about its clothes and house? Or a fire truck that didn't need self-made vroom noises for its engine or sirens for its plastic lights? So he decided they'd scope out the toys for babies, which would hopefully have more simplistic amusements. Besides, if it couldn't hold up to his tinkering, it sure as hell wouldn't hold up to the bashing and tossing of a half-devil baby who didn't know what control was yet.

Giselle's father hadn't been as strong as his Pops, but he hadn't been weak either, and he didn't seem to have skimped out on giving his little girl any of his powers. Thinking about that made the child's original parents even more mysterious in Dante's eyes, as he knew from what he'd learned as a hunter that the only other part devils in the worlds were deliberately watered down by their whole devil parents. So why had this little one been given her fair share?

It didn't seem probable that she'd gotten it on purpose, although it was possible, just as much as everything else he and Lady didn't know about their new daughter's past was possible. Maybe her dad had been in love with her mom; After all, Dante had gone years hating his father for being no better than other demons, so what said he was the only one that could love either?

But then, what did he and Lady really care about her past? They'd put aside several of their own already, it wouldn't be so hard to forget hers and start fresh. And she would get a fresh start with them, Dante thought, or he'd fight Mundus in his birthday suit.

Mundus. There was another thing to consider in regards to his new family. The white-haired hunter wasn't about to repeat his father's history, and he didn't want to put Lady and Giselle in the demons' scope any more than they were, even if he didn't get hacked off first like his old man had. _'I oughtta at least warn Lady about his evil emperor-ness, even if I don't tell her my whole life's story; She's a hunter too,'_ logic didn't make the idea any more appealing, though.

Well, it didn't really matter if she got mad at him for not coming clean earlier about such a big threat, not now that they were both committed to taking care of the half-devil girl he was toting around. Come demons from hell or high water, Dante knew neither he nor Lady would give up that easily on taking care of their new daughter. Heck, if demons from hell did show up, they'd only be getting a worse ass-kicking than usual as a welcoming gift. Looking at his ward and turning her in his arms so that a shelved array of life-size plushies was in her line of sight, Dante admitted to himself that now wasn't the time to be doing anything other than focusing on her anyway.

Sure, he was a demon hunter without comparison, but nothing had yet proven him to be a father without comparison. And he knew from experience that it was better to focus all his energies on a single task, when he didn't know what was going to come at him. _'Well, they say chicks dig a guy who's good with kids.'_ He just hoped the theory held up with Lady, even if it didn't make her jump up and down confessing her love for him and his perfect self.

&

"I can't believe how much that cost!"

"Kids are expensive Dante. And we can't skimp out and get cribs or high chairs made of less durable material, considering how easy it is for her to break things."

"Of course not, I wasn't saying that, babe. I just thought that the hard part would be feeding her on time or changing smelly diapers. How can you stand watching your bank account get sapped like that?"

"I just did. It's a part of life for me, I don't live off pizza, so I'm used to a huge grocery bill and outrageous living expenses. Although, I wasn't exactly planning on spending so much on food, but if you guys really think she'll need the red meat, it's for the best. I guess." Lady paused while putting away a whole haunch of beef, wondering if devils really needed all that meat and where Dante had been keeping it for himself.

Maybe he went out for steak and she just didn't know it. Maybe he didn't need it now that he was an adult, even though she did wonder why Beowulf and Nevan always called him a nestling. _'Nothing with hormones like his could really be a child, and his body is definitely not a little boy's…erk.'_ That was new and dangerous territory that she wasn't up to exploring after today's shopping adventures, so she tried to nip the thought in the bud. Tried being the operative word, because…because she had hormones too, and they weren't going to let her ignore a man like him easily.

Her bi-colored eyes glared briefly at a package of sixteen chicken breasts, as she began placing the meat in Dante's newly cleaned refrigerator with renewed determination. There really was no way out of it, though, and she knew that already. But then, maybe this was a ship she wouldn't mind sinking with. At least it would have plenty of adventures on the way to the ocean's darkest depth.

"Anyways, we'll just have to go out on more missions, or get choosy and take only those with a really fat paycheck." Not that she knew how they'd balance hunting missions and taking care of a kid in the first place.

"We can't do that, Lady. Not together, anyways. Somebody has to be here to take care of the kid, and I don't mean my devil arms. Half of them I wouldn't want doing that, and the other half don't need the extra work. Nevan runs the business junk, and Cerberus has to guard the building, not to mention he hasn't got hands, and it would take a lot for her to trust either of them, and none of them are servants, they're doing me fav…."

"I get it, Dante. But we do have to get more money in, or we can't handle this level of bills. You're a good hunter, but Nevan and I looked at the books last night while you were cleaning out this place you called a kitchen, and even you don't have enough in the bank to support us all right now."

"Did you just look at my hunting account?"

"What other account is there, dummy? Of course we looked at that one." Rinsing her hands in the sink and observing with some satisfaction that the stainless steel was actually stainless now, the brunette flicked her eyes over at the white-haired man's face with a mixture of questioning and irritation. _'I know why you don't handle your own finances Dante, but honestly, how can you think you have more than one bank account? That's bad, even for you.' _Unless he wasn't telling her something. But that would either mean Nevan had kept it out of the loop for some reason too, or that she didn't know about it either, which was probably worse. Not even hell was chaotic enough to match Dante's lack of ability with money management.

"My childhood one. Dad wasn't poor, you know, he had about two thousand years to amass a fortune, which was easy because he was pretty frugal. Demons don't go out shopping on the Million Dollar Mile, I guess, and diamonds aren't half as pretty as gems of demon blood. So he had plenty to invest in Vergil and I when we were born." Lady watched him walk out of the room, mumbling about finding Nevan and calling up some bank or investment company, whatever, she really was too flabbergasted to care.

She was vaguely aware her mouth was slightly open, and licking dry lips, she closed it, contemplating that tidbit. She supposed it made sense when you looked at it the way he described it, but with what she knew about Dante's spending habits, she would have though any inheritance would have been blown long ago. She couldn't help it, but a little voice inside of her was taunting her that she still didn't know everything about him, and wouldn't it be great to get to know him better?

_'They always do say that there's no time like now,'_ but another part of her hoped that the peace of right now, however crazy it was, wouldn't get ruined by his past. His family secrets had already come back to haunt him lately, and Lady knew neither of them could handle any more of them rearing ugly and dangerous heads. Like everything else with her half-devil companion, this too looked like it would be a touch and go.

_'Not that it's a bad thing, necessarily. If he wasn't so spontaneous, we would never have gotten anything done last night.'_ She and Nevan had known they needed to look through the finance books of Devil May Cry as well as her own bank account, but honestly, neither of them had made a move for it until Dante had declared he needed them out of his hair for a while. She'd been offended at first, but then he'd gone about grabbing a mop and a huge bucket of water, explaining with his actions that he wanted to get a jump on preparing for their new housemate. Someday, she'd have to teach him how to get a point across verbally in a more effective manner, but for that moment, she'd left him and his manners alone.

Nevan and she had emerged about three hours later, both a bit miffed at the financial insecurity they were putting the adopted child into and had been surprised to see that the living room floor wasn't the only thing that had been cleaned up. The succubus had laughed about how a woman's touch really meant making a man get off his butt, before shooing her off in the direction she claimed she could smell 'daddy' from.

On her way to the back bedrooms, Lady had to admit she had been impressed with the half-devil's drive and efficiency. She'd complained – _'more like I threatened to beat him over the head with his own drum set' _– about the cleanliness of the room he'd called a kitchen earlier that day, demanding he get it working again and not crawling with unidentifiable but obviously unhealthy material living and not. It was clean, maybe not sparkling so, but it was a definite turnaround.

The living room's wooden floor had been mopped to a dull sheen, the sofa, coffee table, and pair of overstuffed old recliners rearranged into a viable sitting area, tucked in the corner, with the pool table and his drum set on the opposite wall. The jukebox had been put near the arrangement of chairs, and the broken remains of his junk from before Temen-ni-gru were nowhere to be found. On top of that, the hallway to the back bedrooms had been stripped of the peeling wallpaper, and although the view of the concrete wasn't pretty, at least a crawling baby wouldn't be tempted to chew on any dangling sections of wallpaper. She wasn't able to look at the bathroom, but if this was what he'd done with the rest of his house, then there probably wasn't anything to worry about there either.

Overall, Lady was forced to admit that Dante wasn't going to be completely useless after all his hard work last night, but it didn't change the fact that raising Giselle was still turning out to be a full time affair for them. Now walking out of the kitchen she had just stocked, she took off running as she heard a loud thump echo throughout Devil May Cry. _'And here I was just about to go up in praises about how good he's been lately,' _she thought sourly as her hunter's swift legs brought her toward the back bedrooms.

"Hm. I'm pretty sure that's not going to work out with the size of the crib, but oh well. Not like I can't just toss it around a bit more." Wiping dusty hands off on his leather pants, the half-devil resisted the urge to sneeze violently. Last time he'd done that, he'd ended up knocking down the awning over his shop's entrance. His daughter, unfortunately, wasn't as lucky, and the lamp on the newly moved nightstand wobbled dangerously as her high-pitched 'choo!' reverberated in the second bedroom.

"Careful, kiddo, I don't want you to start racking up the property damage too." A smile lit his face as the little half-devil girl turned her best 'What? I'm confused, help me,' face on him when he spoke. Of course she was old enough to know how to charm someone, seemed innate for little kids, as far as he knew. Putting aside rearranging the twin bed for now, Dante settled on the floor next to Giselle and picked up the only plastic toy he'd let the women buy her earlier. It was some vaguely dog-shaped toy made of the same kind of plastic used in dog toys, so he'd been pretty certain it could withstand her baby teething.

He waggled it around once, growled and walked it around the floor with his hand hidden as best as possible. Beowulf said the prey/predator concept was instinctual in all demons, but he wanted to see for himself. If it was, she'd go after the animal, the growl had been an invitation to play and chase, but it could mean hunt as well.

Half the time he heard about random demons slaughtering people it was just because they'd been wanting to have a little sport. Granted, killing people wasn't exactly what humans considered playing, but then, demons weren't humans. The playing and hunting thing had always struck him as being more of a relationship to animals, especially big cats, although it didn't make demons animals either. They just understood the value of a good chase, a hunt, and he was sure primitive man had understood it too.

_'It ain't just the demon in me that likes my job, the human likes the thrill too,'_ he thought as the little girl began growling at the toy. He made an inquisitive growl back, asking her 'what' and 'why', before realizing how she'd growled at the toy. Guess it really was instinct, he thought as she made a shriek that meant 'this' and 'mine' and 'caught', just as she leapt on the plastic toy and began fiercely gnawing on its ears. Well, the catching part was, anyway, even if the killing part needed work.

"Mutilating ears ain't the same thing as a finishing move, kiddo." He let go of the toy, blue eyes watching her roll onto it completely, growling and whacking it while her teeth remained firmly locked on it left ear.

"Dante? What are you doing back here? I heard a crash and I had no idea what was going on or where Giselle was."

"She's right over there, just rolled under the bed to finish off her 'prey', I think. And I'm moving furniture, if that's alright with you. I figured you two ladies could sleep here and I'd sack out in my own bedroom for once." Lady was giving his white-haired head a strange look, as if she wanted to ask where he normally slept, then thought better of it.

He'd personally have liked to let her sleep in his king-size bed, but he was pretty sure the invitation wouldn't go down well. _'Huh, this isn't exactly the time to be trying that anyway, D. I'd probably let her shoot me if I said that now.'_ He thought about her shooting him, and oddly enough found that it didn't bug him as much as usual. Could be that there were bigger things to be worried about, but it could also be that he'd decided to suck it up already. His mother had shot the twins instead of spanking them anyway, and he preferred it to getting the cold shoulder most women usually gave.

Emotional snubbing was such bullshit, and it either enraged him more or just plain confused him, because they either meant it without remorse or they didn't mean it at all, neither of which he liked. And human men thought women were confusing, right, they didn't know half of it. He stood up, reaching behind him casually and ripping the top off the gigantic crib box with one yank of his arm. For the effect, he smirked cockily at Lady, but he really wasn't thinking about showing off for her.

After this, he'd have to tell her about Mundus and a lot of the rest of his family's secrets, along with his own past lives. She knew he'd lived in L.A., she didn't know he'd been known as Tony Redgrave. She knew his mother had died fighting his father's enemies and that his father had sealed off the netherworld from the human world, but she didn't know who those enemies were or why the seals had been put down. _'And if she's going to get involved with this, I want her to be ready, not just willing,'_ he thought grimly, as he began rummaging through the box's contents.

"Do you want me to get a toolkit or something? I know you're strong enough to heft it around, but I doubt it'll just knock into place."

"Sure, there's one in the closet at the end of this hallway that's mostly household junk. The one in the garage is all for my baby, and I don't mean the one peeking at us from under your new bed."

Lady smiled as she walked out the door, and he heard her chuckle as she proceeded down the hallway. It made his mood lift a little bit, and Dante knew that was how they'd get through this. They'd have it hard, sure, but what in his or her life hadn't already been that way? This was nothing, and at least they'd be together in it, tugging each other across the bumps in the road they were on now with Giselle.

**& **

**Fuyuko: I actually finished it. Geeze, I thought this chapter would never get done for a long while there, the way I kept putting it off and getting stuck for ideas. **

**Lady: I was beginning to think you were cursed to the number five or something, considering you had yet to have a major fic beyond that amount of chapters, and most chapters had 5000 words. **

**Fuyuko: Yeah, isn't that weird? Well, anyways, hope this was worth its wait, sorry for the delay, don't expect the next one anytime soon either, y'all know the drill. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Fuyuko: I'd say this came out on time, but since I'm not specifying when on time is, that's kind of left in a gray area of opinion. **

**Dante: Because, with you, as long as it comes out, that's on time. **

**Fuyuko: Well, at least I'm not a hypocrite expecting other people to update any more regularly than I do. It's nice when they do, but I understand that not everyone has time to write. Some of us like to fiddle around and play with action figures of people like you. Little Dante over on the desk doesn't mock me, you know. **

**Dante: …As long as it's not a voodoo doll, I don't really give a damn, although the fact that you play with my action figure is whack. About as whack as a robot disclaiming things.**

**Disclaimer-Bot: I resent that you seem to think I am incapable of doing such a menial task. I disclaim all the rights that the author could possibly hold over your head and announce you and all things DMC belong safely with Capcom, and this is my repayment? Rubbish. Be thankful my termination mode was exchanged for a larger vocal function.**

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle**

**&**

A clear, crisp winter morning several days later found two of the occupants of Devil May Cry offices in New York City already awake and conversing quietly in the kitchen. Dante was preparing breakfast for himself, for once not cold pizza and a glass of tomato juice, because he'd just wanted something else this morning after having fed Giselle. For her part, the little girl was babbling at him in a string of soft growls and whimpers, rolling her empty bottle around on the tray of a yellow duck-print high-chair.

Cracking four eggs into a medium sized cast-iron pan and making sure to keep the raw bacon strips away from his daughter's inquisitive hands, Dante moved around his small but now efficient kitchen, growling back at her with the occasional snort when she said something silly_. 'Kids really do say the craziest things, demon or not,'_ he thought as she asked him again about the white balls that leaked goopy stuff. Why was he heating the goop?

"**Toy? I want play with it too, father-demon!****"** She accented the want with a long, high-pitched whine that somehow always wrenched his heart around and usually got her what she wanted.

"**No. It is not a toy, you cannot play with it. It is hot now, not safe.****"** Not today though, Giselle noted with a pout on her face, her daddy wasn't going to let her play with the goop, even though he got to play with it and the big metal thing. Dante noticed his daughter's face, and leaving off scrambling the eggs for a moment, he nuzzled the crown of her head, breathing deeply out of his nose and blowing the fine patch of black hair there around, before kissing her forehead. She stopped pouting and sat back a little in the chair, content to have gotten attention and love from her daddy.

"**I ****Promise to play later, little nestling. We need to eat first, and wake mother-demon. Must do work first.****" **Lady should have been up by now, but he couldn't exactly say he wanted her up right now, since he was enjoying talking privately with his daughter.

It wasn't something he did often in front of his human partner, because he didn't want her thinking him more demonic or that he was keeping things from her. He wasn't; just because the little half-devil behind him could speak demon didn't mean she was ready to speak a human language yet. Soon, he was hoping to introduce some human words into their conversations, feeling pretty certain that he could explain simple ones now that she had enough of a grasp of demon to understand more than emotion-linked words and was actually speaking rough sentences back to him.

'_I can see it already; The first word I'm teaching her is TV, since that's an essential word for communicating with normal people. …On second thought, I'll wait until she's ready for Lady to teach her human words.' _It wouldn't wash for him to be teaching her words like that around his partner, and anyway, he really did think she needed to know some truly useful words, or at least learn mom and dad.

And he wasn't the right person to teach her those kinds of things, since he really was not a prolific speaker most of the time. Didn't women do communication better anyway? He'd leave it to Lady, the kid was smart enough for it. She asked a lot of questions, like most kids, but that didn't mean she was dumb. Far from it, as Giselle had, as predicted, already broken out of every single type of lock Lady had put on her crib's side bar. Chagrined but obviously also proud, Lady had acquiesced to letting Dante put a simple magic lock over the side that lowered. He'd had to work with Nevan to rearrange the spell to recognize presences instead of needing the unlock spell, but it still hadn't been too much trouble, and everyone was happier without having to worry about Giselle escaping for a midnight romp.

She liked to play with Cerberus, and the gigantic three-headed hell-hound was surprisingly receptive to her patting and giggling, but Dante wasn't comfortable with her being outside at night and neither was Lady, even if the icy dog-demon could protect her from almost anything. Besides, it wasn't exactly Cerberus' job to guard small half-devils throughout the wee hours of the morning, even if Dante would have been up by three to feed her the first bottle of the day. So they'd used a better lock to keep her in, although it wasn't practical for when she was up and about the office.

One of them always had to be right on top of her then, watching with eagle eyes to make sure the little girl didn't get into anything sharp, demonic, or otherwise dangerous. So far there hadn't been any mishaps, but more than likely they'd all have to deal with one before the first month of her stay was out. As it stood now, he, Lady, and Nevan were serving as primary caregivers, but it was putting a huge strain on their hunting income to have even one of the two hunters out of the action. Sure, their work had never been steady, but it had been enough to support them as individuals before, so it was hard to deal with the fact that their pay wasn't cutting it now. Well, at least now he knew why his mother had always been saying the twins were expensive.

Even on the fortune his father had amassed and left behind, it was obvious these days how much of a strain raising one demonic kid, let alone twin boys with matching destructive streaks, would have been. Giselle wasn't exactly racking up the property damage either, which he was thankful for, because he honestly was a bit bothered by all the changes his house had already incurred because of the new living arrangements. Dante wasn't unhappy with having to compromise or clean to welcome Lady and Giselle as house-guests, but his night of house renovations had put into perspective how much of a bachelor pad his house had become and how comfortable with its semi-decaying structure he had become.

'_Man. At least I didn't get into this without any help. Raising kids and having a family is nuts.'_ Speaking of help, Dante figured it wouldn't hurt if he went to find out exactly what was keeping Lady so long. She said she had to be out of town for this job, so unless her alarm hadn't gone off, she should have been up and nearly out the door by now. He pulled the finished eggs off the stove-top and spun the dial to off before ambling off down the halls to the bedroom he'd renovated to accommodate his houseguests.

If they could be called that, anyways, since it seemed this could be a permanent situation some days. Not surprisingly, when Enzo had come sniffing around to hire Dante for a big job in a classy suburban shopping center, he'd made sure to egg his employee about having been domesticated for good. He'd even had the gall to tell the half-devil he should have been ashamed for not inviting him to a great _'partito di bachelor'_. Needless to say, the fun-loving Italian man recanted of the crime pretty quickly after Lady had flipped him a bird with her left hand and brought out a borrowed Ivory in her right.

"Lady? Are you awake? 'Cause if you're not, I know a perfect wake-up call, that I just happen to keep in my pan…" Cracking open Lady's door so as to be heard well without the risk of being shot for disturbing her privacy, Dante found his hunting partner just rolling out of bed.

"Save it. I don't want your bad wakeup call to escape and embarrass itself."

"Good morning to you too, love buns. You look delicious, and I'm feeling hungry, so…"

"Did you feed Giselle?"

"Don't I always? Now, about feeding myself…"

"Did you make breakfast? Go eat it. I'm not hungry."

"Sheesh. You may look hot this morning, but you are one grumpy bear. Eating would definitely help that, although I know there's a faster way of filling you up jus…"

"Dante. Either give me Ebony so I can shoot you in the groin, or go back to the kitchen and make me waffles to repent." He saluted sharply, clicking his booted heels together with a dull thud, then turned and marched off the way he had come. No sense in arguing with success, was there? He'd gotten her to eat and smile, which was good enough for him. With the added bonus of hitting on her, of course.

&

After he had gone, Lady shuffled over to the bathroom, grinning slightly and feeling considerably better than she had when she'd jolted awake at 5:40 to realize that her alarm hadn't gone off yet. It should have gone off at 5:00, so she could have time to take a leisurely shower and get all her gear ready before Dante had their breakfast on the table. Well, forty-five minutes late was better than it could have been, she supposed, as it just meant she'd have to hurry everything up. She really did not need to leave before quarter to seven, anyway.

'_And it's not like I really have to get much of my gear organized anyway, since I did a good part of that last night while Giselle took a nap.'_ It was definitely time consuming and challenging being a parent, but Lady felt like she was at least getting the hang of balancing her own life around being a caretaker to an infant. Thankfully, due to her half-devil heritage, Giselle hadn't gotten seriously ill yet, so most of the caretaking amounted to routine things, like diaper duty.

Stepping into the shower after having brushed her teeth, because she didn't want to lose time making repeat trips, Lady reflected on how the duties seemed to get split up when it came to caring for Giselle. While it was true that Dante, Nevan, and she were hauling most of the weight, with Cerberus sometimes stepping in for play sessions, it was odd how she and Nevan seemed to always end up with diaper duty. Dante avoided it like the plague, which she frankly found amusing, not because it was stereotypical of the male parent, but because he was one person who honestly shouldn't mind the prospect of smelly or dirty business, so to speak.

Then again, he did have a rather sensitive nose, as she'd found out recently that for all his remarks about wearing cologne he really did forsake it, because most brands set him to sneezing with how pungent their scents seemed to him. It left her wondering how he handled hunting, because even she hated some of the smells they ran into. She'd asked before she'd had time to consider why she was asking such a frivolous and personal question, and he'd answered her by explaining that natural smells didn't bother him as much, probably because they usually weren't such a hodgepodge of several scents.

'_Still begs the question of his avoiding diaper duty. I'm sure she's not the worst smelling thing around here. I think the paper plant down the street takes that cake.'_ Not that his avoidance of one part of Giselle's care meant too much, because Lady was pretty sure they'd both long since laid the original bet aside and Dante was actually seeing to quite a number of other things their adopted half-devil needed. He was taking about two-hundred dollars a month out of his own childhood savings and using it for baby supplies only, then putting whatever was left from that month in a new savings account they'd created for her. He was also managing most of her feedings, because even though the special formula Nevan had them using could be prepared using just a stove, it was faster and easier to manage if magic was used as the method of preparation.

Toweling off and pulling on an old wool bathrobe she had, Lady exited the her hunting partner's somewhat infamous bathroom and headed past the kitchen back to the bedrooms, focused on ignoring the supposedly mature half-devil cooking her waffles. _'I really don't feel like getting in his face over some stupid come-on today.' _To be honest, the brunette found herself not really caring if he hit on her or not anymore, aside from the fact that she felt like they didn't have time to be flirting when they were trying to raise a kid. Surprsingly, when she did pass the kitchen, all she heard was her adopted daughter's babbling and Dante telling her in calm tones that her waffles were ready and asking what she wanted to drink.

"Orange juice is fine, I'll be back in a few." Maybe Enzo wasn't kidding, and Dante really was getting domesticated living this way. Even if that wasn't the case, Lady couldn't decide if she liked that idea or not. At first, she'd been offended because that comment effectively labeled her as a domestic type too, and she was no house-wife, damn it. But now that she thought about it, the informant might just have meant that it seemed like the two of them were being more mature, especially around each other. And while that was all well and good, she found there were some aspects to their relationship that she didn't want to lose to maturity.

Putting ammo in cases and belt pouches, holstering guns and strapping them onto the waistband of her pants, getting ready as fast as possible for her job, Lady wondered how much the changes her hunting partner and she were going through would affect them permanently. Obviously they'd both be dealing with parenthood from now on, and that in itself was a life changer, but it was the little things that mattered more.

Dante was still hitting on her and trying his hardest to get hit by her, but Lady couldn't help but feel he was mostly doing it as habit instead of actually meaning it these days. But he wasn't treating her in any new or disconcerting way either. And she wasn't really rising to his taunts or running away from getting personal with him, although she wasn't exactly cuddling up with him yet. She wasn't treating him any different than anyone else or before, really. So where did this new level of respect and maturity put them? Was it just them changing or were they changing how they looked at each other too?

Didn't matter for the moment, she guessed, but it was probably something she'd think about after her work was finished. Right now, she just needed to get back in the kitchen, wolf her breakfast down, kiss Giselle and play patty-cake for a few minutes, then head out on her old motorcycle to work. Anything else could be handled when it came up, because that was the ideal way for a hunter to live, dealing with each thing in and efficient manner as it came. Some things could be prepared for, some things couldn't, but everything could be handled if you approached it with a clear head and a focused heart.

&

Lady had been gone only about two hours before Dante put Giselle back in her crib for her early morning nap, and went to play some pool. Normally he'd have music blasting out of his second classic jukebox and start tearing up the floor with some light kickboxing and lifting, but with a baby around he couldn't exactly do that. Instead, he'd taken to practicing pool and darts, which he told Beowulf was actually accuracy training, as if he needed that. The devil knight had bought the excuse, though, so whatever.

It was kinda funny how serious Beowulf took Dante's training. At first, the half-devil had thought it was because the older demon wanted to make Dante follow some weird dark knight training, but then he'd had that theory debunked by the Agni and Rudra telling him he was already considered a dark knight. He'd then had to consider the possibility that Beowulf was interested either because he wanted a rematch or because he simply wanted to know how Dante could be beaten. Devil arms could challenge their masters afterall, though most did it as preliminary testing rather than as a later attempt to regain their freedom.

Eventually, the white-haired half-devil had cornered the devil who allowed him usage of light gauntlets and greaves about the issue, and had been surprised by the honest admission he had gotten. Apparently, Beowulf was interested in Dante's training not only to see him improve and become a refined rather than a raw skilled dark knight, but also because he wanted the half-devil to be able to overcome any opponents. He'd said it would be a shame if Dante lost to any other demon after beating Beowulf himself, but further nagging had gotten him to admit that he honestly wanted to see how far a Sparda could go, and if beating Mundus was more than just a fluke for the twins' progenitor. If it was more than that, then either twin should be able to do it too, with enough training, and quite frankly, Beowulf had found himself fed up with Mundus some time ago.

'_You learn something new, everyday, just like mom always said.'_ If even a supposedly staunch supporter like Beowulf had his doubts about the ever-so-great-and-powerful demon emperor, then obviously Mundus' days were numbered. Dante could only hope his pop's achievement wasn't a fluke and that he would actually get to kick some emperor butt himself one day. After everything that had happened to his family because of old emperor-failure, the hunter would definitely like to give some back, with interest.

For now though, he sincerely hoped nothing would be popping out of hell to bother his new family any time soon. Maybe a few years down the road, when Giselle was old enough to either hide or shoot a high-powered rifle demons could attack and they'd knock 'em flat as a family, but until then he wanted no trouble whatsoever. It was hard enough to raise her without having demons trying to take a chunk out of anybody under the roof of Devil May Cry.

'Speaking of which, I should probably check on the rugrat, just to make sure she isn't gonna start bawling for attention soon.' It had been about three hours since he'd put her down, so she would probably be up and wanting to play soon. Then maybe she'd be hungry enough to merit his going into the kitchen and fixing them some lunch, he knew there was a nice porterhouse in the freezer somewhere. Dante blinked when he realized how adult he sounded, planning everything out, instead of just doing it as it came. It wasn't a bad change, he guessed, but it was unusual, and he wondered how much he really was changing because of his current situation.

Then again, did it really matter if he changed a little bit? He and Lady were both adjusting, and he knew that meant they were making some changes, he'd noticed them somewhere in the back of his mind. Even if some of those changes were permanent, it might just be for the better, all things considered. They'd been fighting less and doing what was really important more lately, like hunting efficiently and taking care of the people around them, as well as themselves, which he couldn't complain about. And they still teased each other and did stupidly fun things like have blind dart throwing contests when they weren't on baby watch, so it wasn't like they were losing touch with each other and who they had been either.

Looking in at his sleeping charge from where he was leaning on the doorframe to the room she shared with Lady, Dante reflected that maybe what he'd feared would drive them apart wouldn't do that afterall. Maybe, just maybe, having to put up with each other and work together for something other than hunting would help his hunting partner and he open up to each other in new ways. Hell, it might even help them hook up. The way life had been lately, he was ready for it to spit out another curve-ball any day now.

&

"Hi there, can you tell me if this is the _Mercado de Flores_? I need to get to a building near there."

"Sí, lo es, señorita Dos Ojos Hermosos." The little boy standing next to the girl who had answered Lady's question giggled and said something softly about pretty, pretty eyes. For once, Lady discovered she wasn't angry about her mismatched eyes and the attention they often garnered.

"Gracias, niños, comprenles dulces." The hunter held two five dollar bills out to the pair of children, and hesitant at first, they took the money after a few moments and ran laughing up the street behind her to a series of brightly colored shops.

It really must have been improving her overall ability to interact with other people, having to share her space with others all the time lately. At the very least, she was learning how to handle kids nicely, instead of telling them to amscram. She'd learned early on that there were easier ways to manage kids than most people thought of, surprisingly thanks to Dante. He might not be that good at handling other adults, but he was amazing when it came to kids. Giselle liked to play with Lady, Cerberus, and even Nevan or the other devil arms when available, but she really loved playing with Dante.

Lady would probably never tell it to him, but it was kinda adorable to watch the two of them roll around on the wooden floors of Devil May Cry together, even if they did growl and she did bite him quite often. The older half-devil certainly didn't feel a thing when the younger one chewed on him, and he could always get her to let go in a hurry by starting a tickle-fest. Thinking of what she might even call her new family, the demon hunter felt a tiny smile breaking across the lines of her lips. Things weren't perfect, and she wouldn't want them to be, but for all the adjusting that was going on, the current living situation wasn't that bad.

Her biggest complaint was probably that hunting and parenting did not mix well at all, as both tended to require your full attention, or at least a full day's worth of work. Unlike Dante, she had to keep up an intensive training daily training schedule, get a good eight hours or more of rest, and eat three square meals a day just to stay alive in their field. That kind of day just didn't jive with raising and infant, although she could probably count running after her little girl as intensive exercise. At the same time, Lady was a bit frustrated because all this time spent splitting shares of their hunts and the hunts themselves with Dante was not helping her become the independent hunter she'd wanted to be.

She wasn't going to be doing this domestic stuff all her life, just until Giselle was old enough to know not to get hunted down by other demons. Then Lady could return to hunting full swing, Dante and she could go their separate ways, and everything would be back to normal. _'Earth to Lady, that does not compute! What makes you think it'll be that easy to break way from each other if you spend all that time together? Even if you both could do it, what about Giselle?'_

Rounding the corner and locating the building she had been looking for, the brunette tried very hard to put those questions out of her mind, just as she'd done with earlier ones. She had to focus on work, because if she didn't, she ran the risk of losing her neck, literally. Besides, hadn't she already decided to cross bridges when she came to them? Right now, the future of her almost family wasn't hinging on who would live with whom, but on how who was going to pay the bills for the new diapers they would need, as well as the ingredients for Nevan's specialized baby half-devil formula.

And paying those bills meant hunting these demons, which although not actively eating people or animals yet, were spewing poisonous vapors into the greenhouse. And as some of the plant-like demons had gotten big enough that they were obviously discernable in their unnatural qualities from the plants they were trying to blend in with, it was probably for the best that the owners of the greenhouse had called her in. Actually, the call had come to Devil May Cry, but since Dante had been out on a mission when it came and the two were splitting missions anyways, Lady had agreed to take the job.

The only difference it made was for her, because unlike Dante, who probably could have breathed the vapors from the plants and been largely unaffected, she was going to have to go in with a heavy duty safety mask. Thankfully, springtime was coming up, which meant normal people got up to all sorts of remodeling and painting in their houses, so she'd had an easy time finding and purchasing the right masks. With a tiny bit of stapling in the right places, she'd managed to mold several masks into one severely efficient one, which Rudra had placed a wind spell on to filter and purify the air coming through the mask even further.

Lady hadn't been too keen on that at first, but Dante had insisted she allow it as a precaution, assuring her that the spell used would not harm her or anyone else with demon energy. She'd agreed, although she was still unnerved by the thought of using something that had been altered demonically. Now, however, she was at least admitting it was worthwhile and useful, because it was definitely helping her deal with these demons. She could barely smell anything because the spell was filtering everything out so well, so the toxic fumes were the least of her worries.

The top of her list right now was polishing off the last few before they managed to uproot themselves and start running. She'd hit the first row of them right off the bat, spraying them with bullets before tossing a grenade at them. Engulfed in the flames, the first row fell victim to the hunter, shrieking in protest and alerting the rest of the demonic plants in the greenhouse. The next cluster had tried to hide in a clump of rose bushes, but unfortunately Lady was no rose loving gal and had no qualms about torching the bushes with a flamethrower. That had polished off a good number of the demons, leaving the hunter with only the last pack of them that were still trying to uproot themselves.

"Sorry guys, the only place you're going is the compost heap." Throwing a flash grenade behind the ranks of the last few demons she was hunting to disorient them, Lady brought Kalina Ann to bear on her foes. No sense in having a rocket launcher if you weren't going to use it, was there? The missile flew out the barrel of her rocket launcher, nailing three demons head on, while the resulting explosion made sure the rest got ruined by shrapnel and fire.

Taking note that the sprinkler system had come on at last to knock out the fires from her explosive method of hunting, Lady left the greenhouse. The employer had already wired the money into the account Dante used for hunting, and he had understood about handling any cleanup himself, so her work here was done. Getting back to her bike, Lady figured she would be home by about noontime, which left her with plenty of time in the day to think over her earlier queries about the long term effects of raising a child with Dante, as well as spend time with her half-devil daughter. Life was busy, for sure, but it wasn't really anything to complain about, as long as she had enough time and energy to prepare for life's curveballs.

**&**

**Fuyuko: Hm. Well, I don't think that's the best chapter ever, but it's good enough. Has some good points, some not so good points. **

**Dante: Are you seriously critiquing you own work?**

**Fuyuko: Sure, why not? Helps me improve. Don't you criticize your own work/style/technique/whatever-it-is-you-do? **

**Dante: Hell no, woman, I'm perfect. I'm a god on Vie du Marli, you know. **

**Fuyuko: I see. Right. Well, I'm going to go find out if your ego just flattened Texas. Say goodbye to everyone for me, okay? And don't let Disclaimer Bot destroy anyone.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Fuyuko: Hn. This is progressing a lot slower than I'd planned on. **

**Lady: It's killing me. Dante's more brain-dead than he was before too. **

**Fuyuko: So what? I should spare you two or something? I suppose I could wrangle Vergil into subbing for Dante, but I don't think Trish or Lucia would be keen on replacing you. **

**Lady: I'm sure I could persuade someone with Kalina Ann. **

**Fuyuko: Yeah….no. Besides the two of you are secretly enjoying yourselves, aren't they Disclaimer-Bot? **

**Disclaimer-Bot: Whereas I am not suitable to make a judgment concerning human emotions I am quite pre-programmed to disclaim any rights the author has to Devil May Cry and its inclusive characters, so I am sure the lives of Dante and Lady will be salvageable post-production of this work. Capcom does own and maintain them after all. **

**& **

**Devil in the Cradle – Chapter Eight **

**& **

Lunchtime had definitely come by the time Lady arrived back at Dante's office, and she honestly wished she had missed it and been late an hour or two. Coming in the front door and setting her weapons aside in the side hallway to the right had gone smoothly, but going into the kitchen had been a mistake.

In retrospect, the hunter knew she really should have realized it was too quite for a mealtime at Devil May Cry.

It wasn't something as trivial as Dante messing up the food or burning the kitchen, which actually wasn't possible with the anti-fire spells Cereberus had woven into the entire office structure, no, it was something far worse. It was the only thing Lady possibly despised more about the half-devil than his ability to drive her to desperate and violent acts with his constant lame come-ons. It, the terrible thing she had witnessed then, was his complete and utter lack of a sense of cleanliness and order.

Trying without much success to hold onto her rapidly disappearing composure, the brunette woman had haltingly begun her interrogation of her companion, who had already cheerily greeted her from his seat on a dull, gold-chromed barstool next to a much newer and brighter yellow high chair whose occupant had also gurgled excitedly at her entrance. Idly, a small part of Lady's brain brought it to her attention that Dante was sans shirt, and the chilly air that had blown in the front doors with her had left his exposed chest in an even more exposing state, the pink nipples hard and peaked.

"What the hell is going on here, Dante?"

"Erm, I'm not sure what you mean, babe; This little cutie and I were just sittin' down to lunch. You're free to join us, I'm sure we could find a sandwich for you or somethin' around here!" _'He's entirely too chirpy about this,'_ Lady growled in her head, '_Not the least bit sorry for the havoc he's wrecked.'_

She could hardly stand to watch him sitting there so casually, sink eating off of a huge plate filled with steak and macaroni'n'cheese. Rather than pull out a knife and ram it into the side of his stupidly smiling face, however, the enraged hunter walked stiff-legged over to the barstool on his other side and sat down in it, rigid posture and statuesque manner earning her temporary attention from the disarmingly innocent looking devil to her immediate left. That was a good start, but she'd need his full attention if she was going to get anywhere – or get anything through his thick skull for that matter.

"Hot legs, what's eatin' you? Did the mask not work well, or had the demons already started chewin' on something more serious?"

He was confused, huh? Well, too bad, let him be a bit worried and confused for now. It served him right, considering what he'd done here. She sat back, crossing her thigh-high booted legs slowly, so as to catch his attention. If he liked her legs so much, she'd use them to her advantage too. _'Flattery doesn't always help the flatterer, Dante, despite what people say about it getting you anything.'_ Again, a small part of Lady's mind buzzed like an agitated fly, trying to divert her focus to the fact that the leg ploy had worked quite well – her half-devil companion was staring wantonly at her spandex covered calves, blue eyes roving up high from slender, gymnastic ankles to rounded, soft, sturdy kneecaps…

Enough was enough, already, she decided, and Lady suddenly found herself too exasperated to play games or mince words. Ripping the plate out of his hands and holding it out of his easy reach, Lady wasted no time in launching her true attack. "I'm not sure how you could find a sandwich in here, you idiot demon, much less anything else! Just look at this place! This morning, THIS MORNING, it was a clean and functional kitchen! Now it looks like something that got regurgitated!"

"Can you please not mention up-chuck, babe? I really don't want to remember the sight of the first bit of lunch I fed to Giselle when it came back up all over my shirt."

"Dante…" She could swear she heard something snap, hopefully it was just a muscle or joint moving roughly, and not her temper. She did not want to be responsible for murdering the only person on earth who could truly combat all of Hell's forces, including Mundus, who she had recently found out a whole lot more about. Dante and she had finally spoken about the seals and his family's hellish enemies a couple of nights into Giselle's stay, primarily so that Lady would know exactly what she had stepped into, even though they both knew it wouldn't change the decision she had already made.

"Lady…" Oh, and now he was going to mock her, that was just great. Sometimes, she swore he had a death wish. But that wouldn't fix the problem, in fact, it really only meant she'd end up doing the cleanup herself.

"Look," she sighed, willing her voice to sound calm and be reasonable, "I just want this kitchen to be clean and orderly again, so that we can keep using it, okay? I know you can do that, it was one of the first things you did when we decided Giselle was living here."

She'd almost thought he was going to laugh it off and say no, but apparently, he was getting better at being a mature adult, and working with adults, just like she had found herself getting better at dealing with children gently earlier that day. He winked roguishly at her, but she knew he did it only out of good spirits, and she felt it evaporate the last shards of her anger at him.

"Sure thing, Lady; All you had to do was ask."

Handing his plate back to him with an exasperated sigh, the hunter stood up and walked out of the kitchen, turning back with a mischievous look of her own, her eyes alit with mirth at being able to twist her devil companion's arm so easily. It would be nice if all men were this easy to manipulate, especially since none of this next bit even required her to use the tried and true feminine wiles.

"Hey, Dante, since I'm going to be cooling off in the shower, and you're going to be working in the kitchen anyway…you can make me a sandwich, can't you?"

"What?! No…no, what makes you think I'd do that? I am not a paid chef. I do not cook meals for others."

"Well, if you really don't want to… But, you know, I would appreciate it and I'd be sure to thank you." Dante had grunted at that, too miffed at having been pulled around by his weakness for women to even take a shot at the obvious opening. That was fine by her, since she was sure he'd make up for it later. He always did.

Lady wasn't planning on repaying him the way he was thinking, of course. _'There's still no way I'd date a demon,'_ she tried to reassure herself, but Lady supposed she could take some extra time with Giselle so he could go out and do his icky man things with Enzo or whatever.

Knowing Dante, however, he'd probably end up loitering around the town, sniffing up trouble, and beating it back down into Hell, as usual. Hunters like them didn't only care about the dotted line on a signed check, they honestly wanted to do the job and clear the streets of hell's trash. Sometimes though, Lady swore Dante let a few demons get away, ones that met with some crazy seal of approval or safety protocol set down by the son of Sparda.

_'Well, at least it's him and not someone with less of an idea of what being a devil means in the real world.'_ There were worse people out there condoning demons' entrance to the human world, and at least Dante could keep tabs on the few he let slip under his radar. He could even intimidate them into good behavior if they stepped outside of those boundaries he set down, or take them out if necessary. Not like the cultists and other devils who just set them loose and running rampant, destroying lives.

Cutting the hot water back just a shade, letting her steaming flesh cool off a bit from its heat soak, Lady stared at her hands as she lathered shampoo on them. Sometimes it felt like the grime of her life would never come off, like she would never separate herself from her father and his insidious acts. Other times, she reflected, scrubbing deeply into her hair with gentle scratches from her fingernails, it felt like she'd already seen that part of her life go down the drain like the dirty water it was. Either way, it was something that had profoundly shaped her as she was now, and she was pretty sure that no person had ever managed to wash themselves down the drain.

At first, her father's actions had driven her to sorrow, to despair in her own helplessness to avert what had seemed so obvious in hindsight. Normal fathers didn't hole up in dim libraries, especially when their well-meaning and loving wives expressed concern over the habits and co-habitants of their young and tempestuous teenage daughters. Normal fathers would have grounded the increasingly errant Lady for going out to nightclubs and bars, not simply told her to get back in without bothering them in their creepy research offices. It should have been obvious, and she should have saved Kalina Ann, or found someone who could, but…

_'It was impossible then. I wasn't who I am now, wasn't even who I became after I decided to pick up the pieces and ram them into his filthy hide.' _She had always been a good gymnast, and a superior athlete, but she had never put any of her physical ability into combat until after one of the local cops working the case had advised her that toughening up was better than treading down into death. He'd meant just to keep her from destroying herself, because she had been on the verge back then, but Lady had taken it with much more determination. She'd gotten lessons in basic shooting from the cops at the station, and kept tabs on every other bit of information they dropped around her, inadvertent or intentional.

One of the older detectives had mentioned working a similar case when he was a rookie in a bigger Californian city, a case that had driven him to her suburban area. Even better, he'd accidentally let slip that the P.D. there had eventually turned the case over to a private group of special investigators, who only took cases like that one. He'd dismissed them as 'morbid freak-jobs', but a few weeks later, the young girl had thanked the police for all their care and gone on her way to a bigger Californian city, to 'find her path' as she'd told them. And find it she did, recklessly getting into a gunfight with an operative of the group when they refused to tell her anything truthful about what they did. In the end, she'd managed to get inside the Redgrave hunter agency, been trained by a demolitions expert there, had Kalina Ann built, and set out on the trail of her erstwhile father.

Toweling off, Lady knew it was history from there, a history she found she wouldn't change. _'Well, maybe the bit with that red-loving goof catching me mid-fall and making that lame rain come-on,' _she thought wryly,_ 'Hell, I might even feel like changing that bit about shooting him in head…'_ Or not, as it really felt like the strong relationship they had now did owe something to those way more than awkward roots. Lady and Dante fought, but at least they communicated, and even when they did fight, they were always just trying to understand the other's point of view. Ultimately, that had brought them closer together, maturing together, and helping them find common ground, though they also knew better than anyone how different they really were sometimes.

Now that she was dressed, a green wool vest on over a pale gray button up paired with darker gray wool goucho sweats, Lady exited the still steamy bathroom and returned towards the kitchen. Hopefully the half-devil she was fond of had managed to get her a decent sandwich made without creating too much more chaos in the kitchen. And a mug of hot orange spice tea, because he would have to have expected that she would want one with today's chill…wait, _'Half-devil I was fond of? Since when was I fond of him? Of Dante, king of slobs and goof-offs, master of the cheesy one-liner? Drat, I am fond of him…I am, I know it.'_ Surprisingly, the brunette hunter felt very little dread when faced with this new demon.

&

A few days had passed since Lady's epiphany, but she had managed to mask it well, as her demon companion had yet to clue in to her change of heart. It could have been because, as Dante himself often bemoaned, he had rotten luck with women and was actually terrible at reading them, just like any other guy. It could also have been that both hunters had simply been too busy to bother spending much time pondering each other's feelings, as they were constantly in and out of the office with hunts this week.

_'It's only Tuesday, and we've already been swamped with calls. Even daylight jobs and it's not even Halloween anymore!'_ Actually, for all that a lot of people in this country associated the holiday with hocus-pocus and things that went bump in the night, Dante knew that it wasn't a magnet for demonic problems in reality. To be quite honest, Easter was always worse for some odd reason. Maybe it was all the people and animals that got up to breeding in the spring…he briefly wondered if Lady would be interested in helping him test that hypothesis, but nixed the idea.

It wasn't that he liked her less or anything, it was just that he knew better than to be so blatantly crude about something like that these days. Living around Lady for the past few years had made Dante grow up a bit, especially when it came to what she had early on referred to as his 'chauvinistic pig-like mannerisms'. There'd been a rather painful period in his first year around her when he'd still thought he could easily get his rocks off with the brunette babe, which had necessitated her shooting his body up with lead quite often. Needless to say, Dante had learned to back off the direct approach through that experience, though he would never admit to her that he'd actually listened to her advice on how to treat women any of the times he'd been lying on the ground in pain as she dispensed it.

Speaking of the ground, he was glad he'd opted to leave his Ninja back at the campground entrance where it would be free of the mud and slushy snow mucking up his boots, rather than ride it out to the lake he was supposed to be clearing out. Why people would even have been in the lake at this time of year was beyond him, especially when it should also have been totally obvious that a not frozen and in fact, quite warm lake, was not normal in the middle of winter in New York. Sometimes, the devil hunter swore people kept their brains in an off-mode, the way that they missed the most obvious signs of trouble. _'Well, to be fair, there are such things as hot springs, but this place sure doesn't have one, and they don't spawn overnight the way I hear it.'_

But then, knowing how Lady herself took burning hot baths in his office year round, he figured humans must have a natural attraction to warm water. Or at least to water itself, because he also knew he wasn't the one taking thirty minute showers and racking up the water bill. _'It's a damn good thing I have a permanently cut rate, since I took that sewage line clearing job with the city. As disgusting as that was, it has way more than been worth it.'_ The half-devil had barely paid a water bill at all until lately, although he supposed he really didn't mind it. It was kinda hot to think that she liked his bathroom enough to take it over like that, although he did still sometimes freak out when he stepped inside it and smelled her feminine bath products all over the place. He didn't dare look into the cabinets either, because he just knew he'd find something he did not want to see.

Not that he didn't know about that kind of stuff, or was scared of it, it was just something that he didn't really want to know anymore about it than he already did. Sometimes, being half-devil really sucked, what with the heightened senses and all. Dante sometimes felt he'd be happier if he'd just inherited the super-strength, superior durability, and augmented healing aspects of his devil side. At least then he could actually wear cologne, and he wouldn't have to worry about going deaf or gagging so much either. Then again, the hunter also knew that for all the downsides his demonic nature put on his shoulders in the modern world, there were at least twice as many upsides in his line of work alone.

Like being able to see through the steam clouding over the boiling lake waters. Well, not see through, more like be able to see the different heat signatures of the surrounding area and animals, or more importantly, the huge mass of heat at the lake-bottom. His infra-red vision wasn't good enough to discern clear shapes at that distance, but it was good enough to tell him that there was no way he wanted to get touched by whatever that heat was. _'If I thought Phantoms could go in water at all, I'd say there was one down there, with how red that area is.'_ But as Lady would have been quick to point out, giant lava spiders probably weren't going to take up residence in water.

Which left the devil-hunter in a bit of a quandary, as he really didn't think it was a smart or stylish move to go jumping into the water when he didn't even know why it was boiling. Some demons did produce nasty chemicals, and some chemicals did actually boil when combined with water, and he really did not want to be boiled himself no matter what the cause was. Humans might think the water was warm, but Dante was pretty-sure it would be too hot for him.

It wasn't that his half-devil body couldn't handle the temperature, definitely not, since his body was more than capable of adapting to and surviving in temperatures from the negatives on up to the later hundreds without any problems or even any irritation on his part. It was just that he didn't like knowing he was in boiling hot liquid. _'It's just plain unnerving. I can't help it if it makes me feel like a lobster or some other food being prepared for demon consumption or whatever.'_ He continued striding up to the shoreline, letting his demonic aura slip out and blanketing the area with it, hoping it would lure the creatures lurking beneath the water up to his playground.

Not to be, as although he could see them swim up and peer around the higher levels of their watery home, none of the vaguely eel-like demons wanted to come out and play. Sighing, the hunter stripped off his heavy red trench-coat and vest, leaving him in only a tight black top, red leather pants, and black combat boots. He just knew he was going to get jumped now, as soon as he got in the water, watching the creatures swarm and writhe fluidly just below the visibility level of the water. They couldn't have missed his demonic aura, and he couldn't retreat and come back later, as this job needed to get done as soon as possible. It was pretty amazing that the aquatic demons hadn't munched on any of the human visitors to their warm, liquid domain yet, and it wouldn't last.

"Shit. I hate jobs like this." He almost wished Lady was here, because then he could have at least had the pleasure of either seeing her wet, or seeing her enjoy him being wet and sexy. Either way, it would have been a great time. Way better than this, where he was getting drenched for some stupid demons that hadn't mastered living in multiple environments. He stood on the edge of the water, watching the things slide around and approach him in their watery side of the world. They had spikes down their tops, and their two side fins appeared to be capable of sharpening into knife-like edges, but the worst part was the bluish glow around them. Apparently, they were warming the water with bodily chemicals, although he couldn't say it was a shock or a problem. It was just nasty.

Dante leapt up and sky-starred out to the center of the lake, dropping in with a huge splash as gravity eventually pulled him down. Since he had managed to get away from their cluster at the water's edge, the devil hunter now had the advantage of space to maneuver in and ready himself for an attack. His trademark twin pistols were capable of being fired underwater, and he could use his sword, but he wasn't using either today. He had brought along a special needle gun for underwater shooting, as well as Beowulf, who he could use without any drag in the water. The light gauntlets lit the water around the hunter with a haloed and hazy glow, making his beyond human form even more ethereal.

The demons at the back of the pack twisted lazily in the water, as if they weren't quite sure what had happened and were puzzling it over in their minds too slowly to move properly. It might have been the truth, the hunter realized, getting a closer look at their white, ancient-looking eyes, and huge puckered jaws. They had gills, but they weren't very well-developed and he was definitely sure they were not a highly evolved form of demon when they began awkwardly moving towards him, obviously not capable of moving effectively in the water. _'Hell, I swim better than that, and I am no fish in the water. More like a frog.' _It was a gross comparison, because he really didn't like amphibians, but it was true, as his long muscular legs were most effective for kick-swimming and his hands were rarely used partially because they were usually full of weapons. The half-devil really did not do water.

But he was doing it now, since bills had to be paid by hunts, legs kicking powerfully though the still waters as he barreled towards the demons, feeling a bit like a shark. It was pretty clear that this would be too easy for him, as he was definitely the master predator here. The needle gun made three soft 'phuts' as he fired it at the foremost demons, nailing all three in the tops of their heads, killing them instantly to his surprise. Demons didn't usually go down that quick, so either these guys really were piss-poorly evolved, or there was something nasty in store for him. The only other demons that went down that easily were Beezelbubs and Nobodies, both of which spewed out abrasive toxins when killed.

He lingered, treading water and pegging a smaller demon in the head as it tried to come up on his right side, without visually aiming. He'd heard it swishing through the water, and seen it break away from the pack earlier. It had been a good idea hunting method, but it didn't work if the prey was expecting it. Dante floated back, away from the rapidly dispersing liquid remains of the four demons he'd already killed, still not sure what exactly the foul-looking fluid could do. His retreat found devil hunter's strong back bumping into an extremely hot surface and he whirled around, punching out with a straight fist from Beowulf.

The resulting impact sent a tremor shooting up his arm, an unusual thing, as his fists were used to meeting little to no resistance. The more curious than shocked white-haired head cocked as its owner observed the cause of this phenomenon. This had to be the lake turned-hot-spring's true heat source, this whatever the hell it was thingamajig. _'Pretty freaky, whatever it is. Kinda looks alive, with those lights bouncing in it.'_ Transfixed, the devil hunter was on the verge of reaching out a hand and inspecting the odd, octagonal, semi-transparent shell when his back was torn into by the aquatic demons that had come up behind him.

Whirling back to face his original objective at the lake, Dante lashed out in a flurry of kicks and punches with Beowulf, who he could hear grumbling about inattentive nestlings in his head, through the mental link a devil arm in use shared with its wielder. It made for faster reactions, and certainly built up the teamwork quickly, but it was also annoying at times, like when the wielder preferred for twin swords to stuff it and let him work in peace. Deciding he had played enough with these small fry and knowing that he had to destroy the obviously demonic structure they were so defensive of, the devil hunter then surged upward through the water, breaking the surface and vaulting up higher with a boost jump. As he rose, he channeled demonic power into the light gauntlets, working up to his latest stylish move for them.

Beowulf may not have liked the name Dante had given it, but it was appropriate and the attack was worthy of the dark knight status that the nestling already held. By pushing his fists forward at the point of maximum charge, twin bursts of raw demonic power assaulted his target and completely blew it to pieces. It was a visceral move, and tended to also turn into a wide area explosion upon impact. Dante's personal best crater so far had been over forty-three feet in diameter, but it was still shy of Beowulf's, which appeared to have maxed out at fifty-two feet. As he fell slowly back to earth after sky-starring out of the potential blast radius, Dante had a great view of the destruction his Blind Cannon inflicted on the demons in the water.

The thing they had been guarding blew apart into thousands of crystalline shards that rocketed out like the deadliest of shrapnel. The demons that hadn't gotten turned to ash in the initial blast were consequently riddled with the sharp projectiles from their own precious object, turned into dead pin-cushions in instants before bursting into their characteristic goo. Landing, the half-devil could see that he'd probably need to purify the water, as the demon's remains had turned the water a disgusting shade of blue-black, and the structure they had been guarding was spewing out even more of the foul mess, along with hundreds of gross grey lumps. He privately hoped they weren't eggs or anything, because he did not want to have one escape and force him to repeat this silly job.

"Right, now to throw in some of the good, old, burnin' salt and get this whole fiasco over with. I want to get home and snap up some shut-eye, complete with dreams of sexy babes."

Retrieving his coat and vest, pulling out a metal container with a tight leather seal on its already tight lid, the white-haired young man carefully opened both parts of the top, and leaning over the water's edge, poured a generous amount of dully sparkling cream grains into the polluted liquid. At contact, the crystals began to snap and shine brightly like the tiniest of mini-novas, dulling again and disappearing completely as they cleared out the water in an unreal transformation. Satisfied, the young man clapped his hands briskly together after just as carefully resealing the container and restoring it to his coat, as he walked briskly back to his bike.

&

When he arrived back at the office just over and hour later, having mostly obeyed the speed limit's ninety miles an hour in a sixty-five zone, Dante found Lady and Nevan cooing enthusiastically at Giselle. Approaching the scene and releasing Beowulf into whatever form the devil arm chose to take, the half-devil surmised that the pair of women were trying shamelessly to coax something out of the little girl. It was funny, because it was obvious that they were both frustrated with their lack of progress, but couldn't help being charmed by the girl's innocently perplexed expression.

"So…anyone want to tell me what's going on here? I know you chicks get up to some weird kinds of communication, but this is pushing it."

"It's not weird communication, sugar, it's the cookie's first word. I heard her say it an hour or so ago, but she clammed up and won't make a peep now. Except for giggling like a cutie, and making that darling face." The succubus returned to cooing at the child in her husky voice, chuckling when the little half-devil shied away from a coaxing pat on her check with a blush.

Lady turned to him slightly, clearly torn between picking a bone with him and just giving in to the good atmosphere of their adopted child's progress. In the end, she chose to compromise, posing her query and sharing more information about the happy event that her partner had regrettably missed. Hopefully it would happen again, but she wasn't counting her chickens before they hatched.

"She said her first human word today, well, close enough to it, anyway. I had no idea she was speaking before this though. Did you know?"

No point in hiding if he was caught out, and he wasn't going to try to lie in front of Nevan, Beowulf, and Lady at once – he was good at omitting information and weaving simple untruths, but he wasn't that good and he wasn't suicidal in the case of Lady. He grinned sheepishly, as he strode up to his adopted daughter's seat on the pool table center and hoisted her up into his arms at her demonic plead. Briefly sending her joy and pride, he grumbled out a parent's greeting in the demon tongue himself, before turning back to the brunette human.

"Yeah, I knew, sorry for not tellin' you, but it was kinda pointless, since you can't speak any demon tongues. What was her human word?"

It didn't really matter to him, but he wanted to distract his fierce female companion from his earlier chat with their adopted daughter. Despite knowing that Lady's outright and blinded hatred of demons had changed into something more focused and specific concerning only demons that wreaked havoc, it still unnerved him to act like one in front of her. Really, it unnerved him to act like a demon most of the time, but it was especially uncomfortable for the hunter around other humans – he had strove so long to deny it, how could he accept it and expect them to easily go with the flow rather than fear his true nature? It was a fact of life that he tried to avoid and found himself increasingly forced up against, which only made the whole thing more frustrating for the half-devil.

"It was supposedly love, although it sounded a lot more like 'rub', to me. Apparently she just blasted it out in human and her emotions all at once, so I have no idea if she'll repeat it any time soon." Dante could see that Lady was upset with revealing that, guessing that she felt guilty for his absence from the special moment she had been privy to, based on the emotions he could taste from her.

"Hm. I bet she just missed her favorite person. Me, I mean. Yep, that's definitely why she went out and proclaimed her 'rub'." He smiled cockily at the assembled crowd, earning an exasperated eye roll, a sexily amused chuckle, and a grunt for his efforts.

"I do not think that the nestling meant anything by her supposed proclamation. Nestlings never know what they're saying."

"Oh? Beowulf, I had no idea you were an expert on nestlings…tell me, who was your mate?"

"Succubus, do not rile me. I had no need for the frivolities of a mate or nestlings. One simply has to apply logic to the ridiculous situation."

"Hm, yes, that method is always the most effective way of learning. It certainly helped Mundus understand humans were just fodder and that his chief general was no threat."

"Break it up, you two, I kinda wanted to try something here," Dante broke into the pair of older devils nitpick, "And I don't need the distraction any more than Giselle does, got it?" Nevan hmphed, put out at having to put aside her teasing, and Beowulf grunted grudging acceptance of his master's will. Lady stared, then focused her mismatched eyes on the half-devil, silently asking what his idea involved. Why did he taste trepidation and hope all at once from her? Not feeling up to pondering a woman's head, Dante just made a carefree wave of his hand before focusing back on the little half-devil cuddling in his arms.

**"Nestling? Father-demon and mother-demon love you. Want to know you love us."**

The child considered his rough and guttural demon words, comprehension dawning brightly within instants. She sent him a wave of love, and while he sent back his enjoyment of the emotional sharing, he also sent back slight disapproval. She would know that he meant it to be a try again signal, as demons were adept at comprehending the subtleties of emotional messages. After some slight pouting, tiny lips parted and miniature fangs poked through as Giselle responded with her second try.

**"Love, love mother-demon and father-demon! Love!" **thinking she had got it, but catching no surge of pride or acceptance from him, her dark green eyes filled with confusion and she hesitantly checked for a reaction, **"Is good? Nestling good?"**

**"Nestling good. Father-demon loves, is proud of. Mother-demon does not understand. Needs other speech."** Dante hoped that got the idea across, because he really had no other way of communicating what he expected of her, and he could tell the other three were getting impatient with his tactic.

Nevan and Beowulf looked particularly peeved, one thinking he had no idea how to get a child to do something and the other feeling that he was partaking in a pointless endeavor. As a final encouragement, he turned to Lady, facing their adopted half-devil child towards her, and speaking up in human language. He knew that she understood him when he spoke in human, at least on a small level, and he was hoping that this last ditch would coax it back out of her as a response.

"Tell mother-demon that you love her. Say it again, little one."

To her credit, Lady barely twitched at being referred to as a demon, but some sinking in his gut told the white-haired man that he'd hear about it later. Or at least be forced to explain himself under threat of gunfire. Which would mean going back to that awkward place of dealing with his demonic nature around someone he considered wholly human and not to be bothered with that side of him, although he supposed it was inevitable. If he ever did get anywhere with dating her or hell, even just one date with her after the busy lives they'd had lately, he knew it would all have to come out eventually, though it didn't make it any more bearable. To curb that unhappy thought, Dante noted that Giselle was still staring raptly at Lady, sending off waves of love, but slowly getting the idea that her mother couldn't pick upon the emotional communication.

Picking up on the effort, Lady smiled lovingly in the direction of her daughter, and although he knew it wasn't pointed at him, the older half-devil couldn't help the surge of raw happiness her smile sent crashing through his system. It felt incredible to see her look like that, to see his favorite babe so freely happy and open with her feelings, and her wondered if that was the kind of joy his father had felt at his mother's smiles. Dante wasn't stupid enough to think that he loved Lady any less than he had before, living day-to-day with her had the opposite effect on him, and he'd found his fondness for her had skyrocketed in the past few months. He'd seen more of her temper, sure, but he'd also seen even more of her kindness and playful manner that almost matched his own, as well as so many more facets of her character that had only fanned the flames of his love for the brunette. _'The only problem, D, is that you still have no idea how she feels about you. You can't land a fish if you don't know if it's even on the reel.'_

Encouraging as her smile had been, and he knew her emotional joy and love had also helped tug at the small half-devil in his arms, it looked like Giselle wasn't going to say anything again, at least not for a while. Beowulf snorted and began to stalk off, wanting to escape the boxer-like, crew-cut sporting tough that was his reluctant human form. Nevan just shook her head, flame red-locks spilling back down across her black silk suit in a delicious tumble, but she grinned good-naturedly despite the action, still sure of what she and Lady had heard. It would happen again, she knew, it would just take time, just like everything did with kids, demon or human. Dante himself was about to give up, and he could tell Lady wanted to let it slide for now too, but the pair still stood facing each other, Giselle between them, hoping that maybe she would surprise them all.

There was nothing for a few seconds, then Dante felt the girl squirm and send off sheepishness, before she giggled nervously. Lady glanced at him, but quickly refocused on Giselle, not wanting to miss anything this time, holding her breath behind another hopeful smile. Dante also waited with bated breath, feeling something he couldn't quite place at the tension playing out in between the small family, ears straining to catch everything.

Finally, the little girl giggle once more and burbled out what they had all been waiting for, "Wrub! Wrub, wrub maber-debom!"

She was immediately snatched up by an ecstatic 'mother-demon', while 'father-demon' sent wave after wave of his strong pride and love pouring into her for her effort. The two grasped onto their little girl, laughing and telling her in their own words how much they loved her too, caught entirely up in the most joyous moment either had yet had from their adoption of the half-devil girl. Dante's powerful arms encircled both Lady and Giselle, as she held tightly to the little girl, pulling them up to his chest and letting out a thrilled whoop as he picked up Lady and her own handful and swung the pair around and around. Lady cuddled Giselle's form to her chest, laughing delightedly as Dante spun them back down to earth, and turning her beautiful face to smile unbridled at both alf-devils in turn. The tiny family was content in their moment, glad to have something gone right in their world.

&

**Fuyuko: Okay, okay, I know it wasn't all that romance oriented, and for that I am sorry. But I didn't want to rush things, so this time you'll just have to deal. I promise something good in the next couple of chapters. ** **Lady: 'Something good?' By who's definition? I really don't think I want to be kissing a half-devil. Make Trish do it, then we can pick on him for having an Oedipal complex and being a mama's boy crybaby. **

Fuyuko: Methinks the huntress doth protest too loudly. Besides, I have the proof that Trish and Dante are platonic and that you are infatuated. Episode four of the anime anyone? 'Course, I suppose he could be after both of you, but I doubt he wants to get doubly killed for two-timing. 

Lady: You can't use any of that. It's not game canon. 

Fuyuko: Psh. Nobody respects 'canon lines.' They're a fairy-tale. But hey, end of DMC3: Mission 20 anyone? That is fair material, Lady. 


	9. Bonus 0

**& **

**Fuyuko: Originally this came from prompt #74 'Second' on the OTP100 set, but it got way too long, so I decided to put it here as a treat. This is a taste of what Devil Cradle has evolved to as a series on my computer, but as to whether anyone but me sees the rest, that's still in the air. **

**Dante: She means for you guys to let her know if she should continue tormenting us. **

** Lady: We mean for you to say no, or we'll hunt you down. **

**Fuyuko: Ignore them. Just know that I don't own Devil May Cry and can't actually ever do anything except write out my delusional little fanfics. Wait, that was Disclaimer-bot's line..where the deuce is he?  
**

**& **

**Title: Don't Take Your Kid to Work****  
**

**Word Count: 2249 **

**Characters: Dante, Lady, Giselle, some minor bit players, mentioned Sparda family. **

**Rating: PG, because those two can't keep it on a down-low. Like I said, some really minor flirting between the parental units and some violence with the demons, as always. Poor things must get sick of getting beat up all the time. **

**& **

"This is my dad. He runs a private detective business with my mom. Well, erm, really, my whole family is private investigators and mercenaries, but still. My dad does a really good job and he always keeps everybody safe. From the bad guys, I mean."

"That's very nice, Giselle. Does anyone have any questions for Giselle or for her father, Mr. Sparda?"

"Yeah, yeah! Is your dad like Dog the bounty hunter? Cause he seems like he's cool like him and you said that your family is mercenaries, so I was just wonderin' if he was like Dog." An excited hand attached to an even more excited child, cornflower yellow hair swishing with jerky movements at their shout-out.

"Um…No, not really. My dad is a private investigator, so that's different."

"It's not like that overblown TV show. I don't set out after a specific target, I set out to solve a problem, usually one that the local cops and law officers can't handle. That's why I'm a mercenary, because I'm a non-governmental quasi-vigilante."

"Quasi-vigilante? You do hunt people, then?" Trepidation in the question, from a worried parent whose balding head still held some mousy brown hair shot with grey worry streaks.

"It depends on the case." Annoyance, but not enough to be overtly defensive, the speaker wanted this day to go without a hitch.

"Hey, how old are you, Giselle's dad? Because your hair's white."

"Not old enough to be called a gieser. It turned white because of an incident in my childhood. Shocked my hair plain as snow."

"Cool!"

"Yeah, but he looks like Santa, with the white hair and red clothes!"

"Santa's cool too!"

"Hey, Giselle, does your dad deliver Christmas presents? How come you don't live at the North Pole?"

"Alright, alright, settle down everyone. I think that's enough questions for Giselle and her father, so let's move on. Joey, you're next."

As Dante traipsed after Giselle to the back of the room where her desk was, he smiled lightly. He never would have thought he'd get a chance to do something like this, to have a kid of his own who would want to show off their dad at their second-grade class's Parents Day. It meant a lot to him, and he knew it meant the world to Giselle that he had been able to come in today. Lady was a good mother, and their kid loved her just as much, but nobody was cooler than her dad.

Of course he knew it was also about showing the other kids up – he'd told her not to allude to the mercenary side of the family business, but in retrospect he knew it was unavoidable. Real-life mercenaries were way cooler than some TV bounty-hunter, as far as kids were concerned. It was also about seeing him, he knew, because he'd promised to be there for the whole school day and then to take her out for a motorcycle ride to her favorite ice cream shop later. They didn't see enough of each other, and that made the times when they did even more important to Giselle.

She sat in front of him, small form slipping easily into the brightly-colored and fake apple name-tagged desk she had chosen at the beginning of the year. Dante was one of the many parents standing beside their child's desk, as his wide muscular frame couldn't fit in the plastic seats and he'd definitely have broken one if he tried. It was technically her first year of school, as she had been home-schooled previously, and she was older than the rest of her classmates – but it still bothered him was that she had chosen to be alone. Let her shyness separate her. She was different, they both were different, and apparently she hadn't gotten the message that it was okay to be different, that it didn't mean she had to isolate herself.

He'd talk to Lady and the three of them would discuss it later, probably not today. He didn't want to sour today for her. Lady was off on that job anyway, and she was the better parent at balancing sympathy and reproach. He just couldn't do reprimands, so what? It didn't mean he was soft on his kid, really. Dante's thoughts were interrupted as he heard a tiny whimsical jingle-jangle from his vest pocket – why was Lady calling his cell-phone?

"Excuse me." Somewhere along the line, manners in public had become natural for him, probably when he realized maturity wasn't a Mundus brainwashing tool. Or maybe it was when Lady married him and made it her business to tame the half-devil wild-child he'd been. He slipped into the hallway, unconcerned with the opinions of the other adults. If Lady was calling him today, there were bigger fish to fry.

"Babe, what's shaking? Besides your…"

"Aren't you at school? Don't start that in a public place, dear."

"Sorry, force of habit. So?"

"So my prey is in your zone. It has a base there that I'm coming to bust. This one was a false."

"Here? Well, _chingueles_. That's just not fair."

"For them, you mean? I'll get your guns from the school office. Be there in ten."

"Meet you outside the classroom." He snapped the phone shut with a click, wincing as he realized too late he'd used a bit much force. Lucky that Vergil and Pops had fixed up all the tech at his house with anti-breaking spells, having seen through Lady's wrongful blame on Giselle to the true cause. He'd yet to admit it to Lady, though, even if Giselle knew and thought it was funny. He slipped back in the classroom, his daughter shooting him the question look, but omitting the begging puppy dog one. He nodded, smile stiff and false, and she knew it, turning around to pay attention and act normal, dutifully.

She'd known already, he was sure, as he hadn't bothered to speak out of her hearing range or to spell off the conversation into a false one. If there were demons here, then she deserved to know, so she could be ready. He'd have to tell the teacher and parents too, though it would cause a scare, since he'd have to weave in the mercenary job and they'd panic at the thought of criminals in with their children. Ha. It was somewhat funny that if he tried to tell them it was demons they'd think he was a loon instead of realizing the danger. Somewhat funny.

Lady appeared outside the door, his nose eagerly drinking in her smell and making him smile sharply at the ferocity in its current state. His Lady was a tough one, and she liked their job of making demons cower and run back to Hell. He went to open the door again, this time getting an annoyed look from the teacher for his rudeness to the other parents and children. Good thing he'd never been a cowering schoolboy or the look might have made him hesitate over what he said next.

"I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, but apparently there's been some trouble at the school. Since I'm here already and my wife was nearby, the school officials had us on call to handle anything."

"Don't worry, everyone. My husband and I are professionals, and we will make sure everyone in this building is safe from harm." Lady announced from his retreating side, calmly shutting the wooden door behind them and cutting off the anxious chatter that began bursting forth. Could have gone better, their shared glance said, but at least they were going to handle it. Everyone would be safe on their watch.

As if by mutual prearranged agreement, the pair of private investigators stalked off down the hallway, Dante locking and warding doors as they went with his twirling index finger. Lady passed slung his back holster across his left shoulder and he pulled it across to his other shoulder fluidly. Lady checked her own guns, clicking off safeties and loading a special clip into her pistol.

"Those kind? Sounds like this'll be a blow."

"For you. I'll have to shoot them with this to neutralize their defensive spells."

"Or you could just let me take 'em."

"Me miss out on a hunt? Not going to happen, mister. Not even when I'm…"

"'Not even when you're pregnant,' I know, babe. It's what I like about you." She gave him a teasing look that said, 'Only that?,' with brows raised over two-tone eyes, as their foes began pouring up from the floor tiles. They'd sensed him, smelled the devil in their territory and gone after it, too stupid to realize he was much stronger than they. Too stupid and too late to realize that they were the hunted, as the pair of hunters tore into the gaseous demons with hail of bullets.

Lady crippled the first few of their special defensive spell quickly, then brought around the submachine in her second hand and laid down a suppressive line of fire that soon became a deadly storm. Dante slide under the mass, demonic lightning jumping off his body and killing the few around him instantly. On the other side of the mass, he began firing his trademark black and white handguns seemingly with wild abandon, but he never missed a target. The two hunters were dropping the demons like flies under bug repellent, and in no time the hall was cleared.

"All in a day's work, right?"

"Mmhm, and for once, a day's work didn't involve property damage. Your father would have demon-kittens if he got a damage bill from a public school system."

"Demon-kittens? Nice one, I'm telling Mom. See how hard she laughs at the thought of Pops plus kitties."

"Stranger things happen in this family." She smirked, knowing he understood the prod and that they both enjoyed their dysfunctional family. They were back at the classroom now, casually strolling along hand in hand, him slipping the holster off to hand it back to her. On call he might be, but the school officials had made a definitive no on his having the guns on hand.

He broke down all the wards with a minute ripple of his index through ring fingers, and turned to go in their daughter's classroom when he was yanked around by his coat front. She pulled his head down gently and he stooped the extra few inches needed for their lips to briefly pair. So what if the people in the classroom could see them? They were no delinquent children and the last time he checked, it was perfectly G-rated to kiss your wife in public.

Pulling away, he bit back his snarl and blared out a rapid full round from Ivory into the demon that had snuck up on them, watching it disperse into true vapors with morbid satisfaction. Somebody gasped near him, and knowing it hadn't been the woman in his embrace, he spun to glare at the man and woman on the other side of the door. The married couple with the fraternal twins in Giselle's class. This was not going to be pretty, he knew.

"Let you handle it? I'm sure they won't say anything in front of the children, they look like reasonable people."

"Yeah. I'll handle it. Be at the office ASAP, though, in case they call sooner than school lets out." He finally finished handing her his holster, watching her walk off down the hallway before tugging the wooden door open. He smiled brightly at the scared people, the children confused but clinging frightened to their parents anyway. He noticed proudly that Giselle was hugging the little boy whose parents hadn't been able to come, proclaiming to him that everything had been okay, that her dad and mom had kept everyone safe, see?

"Everything's clear, folks. I'm really sorry about that trouble, but believe, it's over with now." He turned slightly to the married couple, coolly whispering, "How much did you see?"

"I saw, well, I think I saw…but no, that's not possible, how silly of me. It was a disguised criminal, right?"

"Call this office later. When you can sit down somewhere calming and safe. We'll explain." As he handed the man a red-outlined business card on heavy stationary, he didn't add that he could help them forget if they chose to, he wanted people to know what was out there, what was really a danger to them. Pops agreed with him, so it was no biggie to tell them either.

The teacher took charge of the class then, asking that everyone thank Mr. and Mrs. Sparda, too, for protecting them. Like he couldn't taste it, but he accepted the thanks humbly, promising to tell Mrs. Sparda how grateful everyone was and assuring them it had been no trouble at all. The boy had opted to stay seated next to Giselle and beamed up at Dante, face shining with joy equal to what the half-devil sensed pouring off the honest child. It was the most satisfying feeling Dante had experienced in a long time, having not felt true gratitude un-muddled by fear in many years.

As he stood behind Giselle and chuckled 'no' to her request for his help with the arithmetic sheet the teacher had passed out, the half-devil was certain this day had still gone well. It was one thing to save people everyday; it was another thing on the one day you knew how much it meant to someone that you did save the day.

**& **

**Fuyuko: Hm. Can't use this as a drabble for OTP100 now. It's way, way too long. And I seem to have used Giselle a bit too much in these prompts, so I think this is definitely a no go there.   
**

**Lady: So what are you going to do with it? You scrap enough writing as it is.   
**

**Dante: Seriously, you need to lay off the wasted writing. Either write shit and put it out or don't write shit.   
**

**Fuyuko: I feel the urge to put a whole in the loudmouth calling my writing shit, even though he's using a colorful euphemism. I'll put this with DevilCradle, as a bonus, so I hope everyone enjoys it. Now, off to do my real work.**

**& **


	10. Chapter 9

**Fuyuko: Whelp, I suppose this whole two chapters so close together thing might redeem me of the not having updated for an unholy amount of time. **

**Dante: Yeah, no. Your luck with redemption is a good as my luck with women. Rotten. **

**Fuyuko: I don't know that your luck with women is rotten. At least, it's not if one factors in fandom, where you get off with everyone, including female!Vergil. **

**Dante: Dude, no! I'm so asking Capcom to confirm me as a bachelor at my next game shooting. **

** Fuyuko: Your loss. I hear the times you twins have are 'teh mostest haughtness evah!!1!!!eleven!' Disclaimer-bot, do you have anything to break this up with? **

**Disclaimer-bot: Indeed. I hereby disclaim all rights of the author of this odd piece to Devil May Cry, or any incorporated and licensed components therein. The rights of DMC and all its subdivisions belong solely to Capcom corporation, luckily for the Sons of Sparda. **

**& **

**Devil in the Cradle – Chapter Nine **

**& **

Neither of the hunters could have guessed after that happy moment that the next day would bring them even more happiness. It was completely unexpected, unplanned, and unwritten, but in retrospect they both knew that was sometimes how things like it happened. They had been spending the day with Giselle, both of them for once, since there were no jobs yet for the day and neither one felt like training. To be honest, neither of them had felt like doing much of anything relating to hunting today, being too distracted with the newly talking child.

Dante had, true to his earlier intentions, attempted to teach his adopted daughter all the important words for survival in the human world after her first day of speech. Most notably: television, pizza, tomato, juice, demon, gun, pepperoni, no, anchovies, sausage, chicken, barbecue, beef, sauce, hunt, sword, devil, money, and Mom. He would have tried a few more out of his own survival vocabulary, but Lady had come back into the room just as he was trying to go over the finer pronunciation of 'babe'. Needless to say, the brunette 'babe' had quickly put a zipper on the demon's trouble-making mouth, courtesy of threat of pain to his 'boys'.

After making a break from that hazardous scene, Dante had found himself in the kitchen, feeling a craving he knew well coming on. _'Talking about pizza sure did make me want one…I wonder if Gino's delivers before noon?'_ Moot point, he decided, running his left hand idly through his white bangs, while his right speed-dialed the number for Gino's. No devil needed actual speed-dial, he had decided long ago, and since he definitely didn't want an answering machine or caller ID either, his phone was pretty basic. Or outdated junk, as Lady had declared it. He'd huffed indignantly and told her it suited the purpose of a _phone_ just fine. She'd smirked and called him a technology hater…then added that at least he was enough out of the feudal ages to understand that guns were a good invention.

They'd both laughed at that, although somewhere they both knew that it was a bit of a morbid reference to his almost-samurai, bushido admiring twin. _'I do kinda wonder what Vergil would think of this…me playing at daddy, with Lady at the mommy wheel.'_ He was pretty sure his twin had known the younger one had developed a crush on Arkham's daughter, pretty sure that Vergil had been mildly amused by the situation. When they were little, the twins had freaked their mother out early on by hugging, nuzzling, and entwining their bodies together. At least, it had freaked her out until she confronted the nonplussed Sparda about it, only to find that devils often had extremely intimate relationships with their nestmates – although it rarely developed into full-blown sexual or romantic involvement.

Having ordered his extra-large sheet pizza with the works from Gino's, Dante realized not for the first time how bad he felt for Giselle, who had no nest-mates, not even a hell-raising twin like his own lost one. While it was true that the last few years of their lives had been spent hating each other's guts, the twins had still always had each other; Someone else who understood them intimately and had grown up pulling the same pranks, getting punished for the same transgressions, eating the same chocolate cakes. It was very hard for Dante to imagine never having those happy experiences at all. _'…That's funny, I never realized it still bothered me to think about never seeing Verge again…'_ The half-devil let go of the counter before he crushed its wood into sawdust, harrumphing and sniffing a bit as he tried to suck up the sudden surge of sorrow, regret, and loss.

He sauntered back into the main office, plopping down in his green-cushioned high-back chair with a melancholy sigh. Lady, who was rolling a hollow metal ball with Giselle, glanced up at him without bothering to shade her concern. She'd mostly given up hiding her emotions on her face, since she knew he would smell and taste it anyway, and they really were beyond that level of separation now. Rolling the large gold sphere away from her and under the office's client couch, where she knew Giselle would chase it to, Lady rose from her spot slowly. Sometimes her half-devil friend didn't want to be bothered when he was in a funk, but she didn't think he'd mind this time. She was pretty sure she knew what was on his mind, anyway, judging by the sigh.

"It's not your fault, and you know it. He did what he thought was right, and you did what you thought was right."

He made no reply, but his eyes slid ever so slowly over to his mother's framed portrait. Picking it up gently and reverently, Lady smiled back at the blonde woman in the wood frame, sitting down on the front corner of the desk. Sometimes, she swore Eva was still looking out for her sons, even if she couldn't spare them all the things they had to suffer through. She had given them good heads, and even better hearts, in preparation.

"You're wondering what she would have thought about it?"

Again, he didn't reply, but she could tell he was listening, and she almost prayed that Eva – or even her own mother, Kalina Ann – would help her say the right thing next. Dante's family was a sensitive subject, not because of resentments anymore, but because of regrets.

"I'll tell you what she would have thought. She would have thought that the two of you did what you had to in order to survive, to live on as she and Sparda had wanted for you both. Vergil is just as tough as you, he'll survive hell. And in the meantime, you can live here and fight to make sure others don't suffer either of your fates."

Setting the picture down again, swiveling it to face him, where he paid it rapt attention, Lady said her final piece. It was something she'd been thinking for a while, although she didn't know if it was even possible. Eva, maybe, there were definitely rituals like that for humans, and it would probably work on Vergil assuming he was even dead, but Sparda was a problem. As far as she knew, demons didn't come back when they died.

"Who knows, you could even fight to take back what you've lost. Fight to find your brother, to bring back your mother and father. I'm sure someone out there knows how to do it, and you never know what a good deed will bring."

A part of her whispered, softly cried that bringing Kalina Ann back would be just as wonderful, but Lady doubted that possibility as much as she did resurrecting the Legendary Dark Knight. In the same way that demons left nothing of themselves behind, they didn't leave anything behind of those who had been sacrificed to them either. _'I can still remember seeing that hideous flash, and the lightning that arced into him as my mother blinked out of existence…'_ It was a disgusting memory, and she still had trouble swallowing the lump it formed in her throat, but she tried it anyway.

"Thanks, Lady. You really are one tough lady."

She had to laugh at his corny line there, and even though it came out as a choked, stifled chuckle, it still helped the sorrow dissipate. He chuckled with her, fully aware of how lame and cheesy his comments were sometimes, but that they always helped anyway. The pair of hunters was sitting there chuckling with increasingly real mirth, when they realized their sounds had been joined by happy toddler gurgles. Grinning, Dante scooped the little dark-haired half-devil up onto his red leather covered knee and began bouncing his foot on the wooden floorboards. Giselle had abandoned the ball under the pool table she had rolled it to, and made her way over to them silently.

She was good at stealth, Lady had observed, even if she didn't walk upright yet. Nevan had said that it probably meant her kind of demon had been quadrapeds longer, and that she would have a more developed sense of fine motor coordination from crawling for a longer time. Even if neither thing was true, however, it couldn't be said that the little girl didn't know how to get around. If she couldn't get somewhere herself, she already knew what strings to pull with which person to get herself a free ride.

Dante was frequently seen around the office serving under a king of the mountain or with a calf limpet on him. Agni and Rudra could also be seen acting as individual leg ferrymen, or sometimes working together as a kind of hand coach. Cerberus gave the largest amount of 'horsey' rides, having the most ideal form for that kind of transport, although he did occasionally carry her by the back of her clothes in his middle head's jaws. The other two heads invariably took those opportunities to thoroughly swathe the little girl in dog kisses. Nevan and Lady, of course, preferred traditional child-on-hip and babe-in-arms techniques, although the former did use her bats on occasion for a kiddie joy-ride. And while neither hunter had seen Beowulf with Giselle alone, Agni and Rudra swore up and down that they had seen him giving her a piggy-back ride once.

As Dante bounced the still giggling little girl on his right knee, Lady realized how much more like a home Devil May Cry had become since Giselle's arrival. While everyone had been amiable before, they hadn't truly bonded in any real way. Now, they were almost like family, and it was increasingly less strange to think of devils that way for Lady. They weren't human, not by a long shot, but it didn't mean they didn't have feelings.

Not for the first time, Lady wondered how Dante's feelings for her had changed since they had partnered up. She now knew her own feelings had changed drastically, and part of her hoped that he felt somewhat similar to what she did at this point in their lives. The brunette could admit that she had initially retained a large amount of her loathing and fear of him from the tower, although she had also been undeniably curious about his real personality. By the time she'd agreed to be his business partner, Lady had gotten over most of her negative feelings and prejudices towards the half-devil, but she had still been easily annoyed by his more flippant attitude, especially because she had already seen evidence that it wasn't his full persona. And over the past few months, she had been struggling not to let herself admit that her feelings for him had developed into more than a crush on a good-looking man. Now, it was a struggle she had recently given up on fighting, choosing instead to admit her attraction to him and see what came of it, hell or high water.

The only question about their relationship now was how the half-devil himself felt. It was true that he wasn't constantly hitting on her, and he was certainly not taking anymore attempts at panty-peeks. But he did still call her a babe, a firecracker, a bomb, and a fast woman amongst other things, with no small amount of sincerity in his Dante-styled compliments. Lady wasn't dumb enough to think that constituted the kind of attraction she was looking to compliment, however, because she knew Dante had an in-grained habit of hitting on anything that was his age or older and had two legs and boobs. _'I doubt I'll ever ask him how he feels though, it would be awkward and I don't know how to do it.'_ Sometimes, she regretted missing the latter part of high school to train as a hunter, if only for the social skills it would have given her.

"Ew. I really wish you'd grow out of the diapers thing, already, stinker."

Lady's train-wreck of thoughts was interrupted as Dante tried to hoist Giselle onto her lap, refusing once again to take diaper duty himself. Sighing and passing him an exasperated look, she moved to take the dangling child, sliding off the desk corner herself. At the exact moment that she opened her mouth to tease him about his fear of diapers, the doorbell rang, and Lady was almost knocked over by the devil as he sped excitedly to the front door. Apparently, Gino's did deliver before noon, probably because they thought it was safer than an evening delivery to Devil May Cry. She'd been told once by the disgruntled half-devil himself that no pizza parlor delivered to his office after the sunset anymore, due to a few tiny incidents. In the bathroom, wiping down Giselle's bottom and powdering it very lightly, Lady realized that those incidents were something else she had never asked the half-devil, but that she probably wouldn't ever ask either. Some things were just better left listed as unknown.

When she returned to the front room, with the contented and cleaned smaller half-demon dozing off in her arms, Lady was not surprised to see the larger one sucking up pizza like a vacuum cleaner. He'd done well lately, she knew, only having one every few days in between regular meals, but it still didn't seem to be any less his favorite food. Dante looked up to offer her a slice, his blue eyes wide and inviting, before they flicked to the now snoring baby girl in her arms and softened with a happy crinkle in their corners. Appearing to shove the slice in his hand down his throat without chewing even once, Dante rose to take Giselle from Lady and put their adopted daughter in her crib. He could be there and back without his pizza even getting any cooler.

"Feel free to take some, bomb-licious, it's as tasty as you are."

He grinned cheekily, swooshing off in the direction of the bedrooms too fast to even kick up dust. Sometimes, Dante preferred not to know her reactions to his unorthodox compliments, because he was still a bit worried that she'd turn him down. He really wished he could just get the whole thing sorted out, but as much as he hit on the fairer sex, Dante had to admit to himself that he was a bit of a pussy when it came to actually asking them their feelings and acting accordingly. He'd probably be in the clear if Lady liked him, but if she didn't, he could see himself getting blown sky-high after a wrong reaction.

_'Scratch that, I could see myself getting blown sky-high just for asking Lady what she feels – she's not the gushy type and she'd hate to be treated like, well, like a regular girl.' _How then was he going to approach this problem? He'd meant to ask her out on a date after that joint mission nearly two months back, but since it had landed them with the half-devil baby girl he was currently putting into a yellow wooden crib, he'd not had the time. And now he wasn't sure if asking Lady for a date was even appropriate, not to mention he still couldn't see them getting time to go off on their own for even a short dinner date. Tucking Giselle's cream-colored and duck printed blanket around her loosely, sending a love of soothing love at her, Dante turned to leave the room, still puzzling over his dilemma.

He blurred back to the office front, a pout-like frown marring his handsome face, as his mind wrestled with possible ideas. It didn't have to be romantic, but he was tired of pussy-footing around Lady and tired of hiding his own heart from her. Dante was honest by nature, as no demon could lie outright, but he was honest as a person on top of it, wanting people to know the truth. If he'd thought it would be believed and not have him locked up in a nuthouse, he'd have told the entire human population about demons and the Underworld, because knowing the truth would enable them to set up protection, as far as the half-devil was concerned. There were a few people who knew what he was, knew about the Underworld, but it wasn't a large enough scope to protect all of humanity. It was the same problem that had been around in his parents' time – there weren't enough hunters and agencies to cover all of Hell's henchmen.

Dante's white-haired head shook gently as his butt plopped down in his favored green armchair, the wood creaking as he leaned back in it with booted feet propped up on the dark wooden desk before him. Lady half-spun from her position on the client couch, wiping at a pizza sauce stain on her angled chin. Not ready to face her and the question he'd decided to pose to his hunting and parenting partner, the half-devil man yanked up a large slice of the pizza from the box on the desk's corner, tearing a bit off the end blankly. Could he just ask her out on a date anyway?

No, that would be way too casual, and it might not result in anything more than the two of them beating around the bush and then being awkward around each other for days afterwards. He could clearly recall the last time they'd gone and done something civilian together, when she'd been embarrassed to come over for a few days after. They'd only gone out shopping, and he'd groaned and whined about it at first, but somehow, his mouth had made a bigger annoyance out of itself when it had let slip that she would look hot in the gray pencil skirt and red, ribbon-tied dress v-cut blouse they'd passed in a store window. He'd later discovered that she had gone back and bought the outfit, but he'd never seen her in it, since she'd been too embarrassed to even admit to buying it at first.

Taking another slice, again managing to chew and swallow slowly, the young man tried to think of a different approach. _'I can't ask her how she feels, I already know that would be messy. And I won't get someone else to find out for me…don't even know who could.'_ Could he try to tell her his own feelings and hope she'd open up? Doubtful. His feelings had been open to her on the tower and ever after, and she had never once made a move to reciprocate them. He knew she wasn't disgusted anymore, that much was obvious, but he didn't know why she didn't tell him what she felt. It was possible she was embarrassed to do it just as much as he was, and it was also possible that she felt it was inappropriate given that she had already spurned him once. Surely she knew he wasn't the type to hold a grudge over something like that…it had been piss poor timing on his part anyway.

"Thinking hard still? I hope your brain doesn't burn out." Lady's taunt burst into Dante's storm-clouded thoughts, breaking up the bleak blackness that had been building at his inability to find a suitable way to make a suit for the young woman before him.

"Ha. You wish, because then you'd get to inherent my junk, including my babies here." He patted Ebony and Ivory at their thigh holsters, realizing half with amusement and half with sheepishness that the action meant she would be looking at his lower half.

She grinned at him, a mischievous sparkle lighting her eyes as she considered the truth of that statement, and tried to tear her eyes off of his muscular legs. A small part of her mind wondered what it would be like to have them under her own, but she nixed it and masked the rising heat in her face well. It wouldn't do to have him getting ideas right now, even though a part of her was slowly dying from not knowing how he felt, from not knowing if there could be something between them. It had been tough to hide her new found emotions this past week.

"True, you did promise me your guns if you got axed without notice. I wonder if that extends to your devil arms…I wouldn't mind having Cerberus and Nevan stick around." Because they were great weapons, and would serve a human master, sure, but also because she was honestly somewhat fond of the two. Nevan was only hard to stomach until Lady had discovered she only hit on Dante for the joke.

"Baby, you know I would give you anything you asked. Hell, you ask for it, I'll even give the wildest ride ever, courtesy of the Dante Express." Well, maybe he could use his cheesy one-liners to beat around the bush, maybe even get some things into the open, the half-devil figured, smirking cockily at his companion. It was a game of theirs, this witty banter, and maybe he could actually use it for something other than to irritate her for once.

"I'm sure it would be a quick trip, you being impatient the way you are. Honestly, I could be convinced you were in need of drugs to calm down." She smirked back, the cat-like look of a predator toying with its prey, as she sat down next to his feet at the desk edge. Her right hand laid itself on his booted foot, short-nailed fingers tapping imperiously on the thick leather covering, challenging him.

"No, no, babe, these rides are for special passengers only. They're long-lasting and come with peanuts and frequent traveler miles for later trips."

Good merciful holy things, he was using airlines as an analogy for potential intimacy between the two of them. If that wasn't cheesy, Dante didn't know what was, but at least it was working in some respect. They weren't talking about feelings or any deep emotional junk yet, but they had definitely acknowledged mutual attraction there. He flicked her hand off his boot with a playful flash of white teeth and a bounce of his foot, daring her to do it again. He saw her own playful smile stretch out further, as she slowly raised the hand and pretended to go for pizza before clamping it down on his boot again and giving the foot a rough shake. It felt gentle to him, and she knew that, but the heat in his eyes at the action almost killed the game. _'Apparently he likes it rough,'_ Lady's mind quipped, _'That should be fun, if you ever get around to messing with more than his head.' _

The devil in Dante was pleased with the rough treatment, and he couldn't help the surge of heat that went through him, showing briefly on his handsome face, before its features slipped back into playfulness. He wiggled the booted foot, lightly jostling her hand and forcing her to hold on to maintain the game. He wondered if she would grip other things that tightly, with the fierce determination he saw lighting her beautifully mismatched eyes, and the idea made him gulp. He felt her eyes watch his Adam's apple bob, distracted from their game that was slowly turning serious.

"Nervous pilot? That's never good for safety. Good thing his co-pilot knows where they're going." This was utterly ludicrous, using some plane analogy to talk to each other, and a part of Lady admitted that she was exasperated with their inability to communicate deep feelings clearly.

"Not nervous, just a bit thirsty. Damn stewardess hasn't brought me a drink yet and the co-pilot's not sharing. I know where we're going though, I'm tougher than a little thirst." If this got them anywhere, he'd be the first one to give it props, but he seriously thought this was just and insane rambling path that would only have them beat around the bush and never actually get inside it to the secret garden.

"…This is silly. We're more mature than this, aren't we?" Lady was tired of the joke, making to stand in exasperation with her own inability to confess her heart to the one person she trusted more than with any other part of their game. After all this time, the trust and the new level of respect they had lately, yet she still didn't have the nerve to admit the truth to him? It was disgusted, she was ashamed of herself right now, ashamed that the woman she was now was too hard to open up to her loved ones.

Dante's mouth hung slack-jawed for a minute, watching her push away from the table and go to leave the room, feeling and tasting the dejection lining her strong soul. It was a gross taste, one that his whole body recoiled from, the devil side writhing in agony at its intended one's hurt. He didn't think, he just bolted up from the chair, rushing past her and blocking the doorframe bodily. _'It's now or never D, you have to make a move now, you've crossed the line and you have to face it like a man.'_ Lady stopped in front of him, eyes empty as they looked up at him in askance, pleading that he let it go. But another look crossed her features, one that told him that she wanted to hear the opposite, to have him fight back against her.

"Wait, ba…Wait, Lady. I meant it, I mean I wanted to say, I…damn it this is hard, I wanted to say it, but I couldn't and I don't know if I can now. I…you…uh…" Wow, some part of Dante's mind sniped, good lines there, such impressive mastery of the function of speech is definitely going to land you a chick like Lady. He sighed, frustrated with himself, then looked up to try again, wishing he was as good at real people skills as he was at jokes and taunts.

"Look, what I'm tryin' to say is that I feel, uh, my feelings haven't changed since the tower, except well, maybe they're more sincere, and well, anyway, I know you probably don't feel like sayin' anything about it, but I can't help how I feel and I want to be honest with you," he steeled himself, felt all of his muscles tense and tried to keep his demonic power from snapping out and Devil Triggering him at such a crucial moment, "…I love you." It was so soft he was sure she hadn't heard it. He snorted in wry amusement at his own shortcoming, pushing out of the doorway slowly and feeling like lead.

"…You love me?" The reply was just as soft as his answer, the tone indecipherable to his muddled mind, and he feared suddenly that he would get rejected again. But he had been speaking truthfully, and he did want this out of the way, so he turned back to face her almost hesitantly, waiting for Lady to continue. Dante's breath was shallow, and he idly wondered if this was what people meant when they talked about nerves and anxiety attacks.

"That's what you said, right? That you were being honest about your feelings, that you love me," the dark-haired woman was facing away from him, but her tone carried some shock and awe in it now, traveling softly back to his ears as she carried on, "I'm glad. …I thought I had lost the chance to hear that, lost the chance to be honest with you back in the tower. I know, I mean you hit on me, but I thought that was just you, and then when you would seem sincere, I brushed it off…I didn't want to admit my own heart, didn't want to hurt either of us again."

She faced him, and he was freaked to see that she was crying, wanted to rush over and wipe away the tears, this wasn't how he wanted this to go. He wanted them to be happy, wanted her to be happy, and if this was how it was, then he didn't want it. Even if it meant he was denied her and the chance at happiness with her, he wanted her safety and joy over his own, not her tears and pain, the taste of which was making his stomach churn violently. She gripped his coat as she stumbled over to him, burying her face in his front and apologizing quietly, the whispers cooling the liquid drops of her tears that had spattered onto his tight shirt and chest.

"It's okay, Lady. I, well, I don't think I understand because it's hard to right now, but I promise I'll try, promise I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy." He was a sucker for a damsel in distress, and this was no different, as he wrapped his large warm arms around her and rocked her gently against his frame. _'Anything for your happiness, babe,' _he thought.

"Anything? Then say it again, tell me you love me. Maybe then I'll be able to…able to tell you," Lady trailed off and still feeling his heart cracking, Dante repeated his earlier declaration, hugging her tightly and choking down his own hurt savagely. He didn't expect her to say anything, but some part of him hoped saying it again would change everything, would make it better, the way he had envisioned it.

He certainly wasn't expecting her to stretch up and let their bodies speak, and he mentally smacked himself at the action. Her lips barely reached his own, and it was clearly she was straining, so he allowed himself to sigh into the light contact and stooped to deepen the tender touch of lips. His smooth pale lips pressed deeply into her soft red-pink ones and he felt himself warm at her pleased moan, tasting with sharp clarity the emotion she was feeling as they kissed. He hadn't tasted it this sweetly in so long, and his devil side gulped it down, delighted at the taste of her love, of unconditional love directed at him.

The kiss grew heated as his devil took a forward approach and nipped gently at her lower lip, seeking a gasp that would open her mouth to his. He got what he wanted, her lips parting and heat from her mouth ghosting over his own lips before his tongue dove inside, licking at the nipped lip sweetly before moving on and ravaging her mouth. The heat drove him wild, a throaty groan slipping out his mouth and into hers where they connected, a groan that peaked into a snarl as she thrust her own tongue back against his, moaning gently at the liquid contact. Her tongue powered past his in a teasing and saliva dotted joust, lips wet as they kissed deeper and began to battle in his mouth now, tongues slipping against each other. Their breath mingled, the moist heat tickling their faces as it dried in between them, Lady's tongue retreating, licking sharp canines on the way out, nipping his own lip in returning, just as he had in entering. Kissing slower now, but with still flaring passion, the pair panted slightly and eventually parted, eyes closed a moment longer as they each savored the unexpected act quietly.

"I love you, Dante." The addressed man almost missed it, the woman before him letting the words slip forth silently, almost fearfully. Was she still worried he'd reject her? He chuckled, the chuckle becoming a bright laugh as he picked her up and hugged her fiercely, for once not bothering to check his devil's aura and emotions from detection. _'Who cares who senses me now,'_ he thought, _'I'd take on Mundus right now, and I'd win!'_

His laugh was joined by her own as it broke through her haze that he hadn't rejected her, that he had been sincere. Lady was glad he was the one holding her up right now, she wasn't sure she could stand, she was so overwhelmed by her thoughts. _'I can't believe that we kept it inside like that, that we were both afraid of rejection so much. We almost passed like ships in the night,'_ It was a sobering thought, but it failed to get her down too far in this moment, as he hugged her tightly and set her feet back down on the ground. His lips found hers again, and the pair kissed feverishly, hands clutching each other's waists. He leaned down into her arms further, licking to gain entrance this time, and their tongues battled briefly in a wet and hot duel before his kisses moved to her cheeks. A sigh escaped her mouth as he moved them back up to the doorframe, pinning her against its rough surface and molding his lips back onto hers to catch the sound.

The two hunters stood there kissing gently and then harshly, alternating with their passions, licking and sucking at each other's lips hotly. Minutes passed too swiftly for the new couple, as his warm kisses devilishly moved around her face and neck finding sweet spots, and her own smooth hands ran tantalizing patterns around his torso and neck finding teasing areas. They parted slowly, grinning widely like the lovesick fools they could now admit to being, Dante quipping something cheesy and getting a light smack on his forehead for it as they cuddled in the ripples of their new love. After yesterday, neither had thought a happier moment could be coming up, being used to having the other shoe drop on their lives by now, but neither was complaining about this outcome.

**& **

**Fuyuko: that's a wrap here, folks! I finally got out the ninth chapter, hope ya'll like it. I know Dante and Lady did, the little perverts enjoy making me write the hot stuff. **

**Lady: I do not! It's all that demon, he's the pervert! **

**Dante: Babe, I don't think we can lie about this much longer. At least it's better than Vergil and me together. **

**Fuyuko: Exactly. So stop messing around and get on with it. Or get it on, as it were. I need the muse action for the stuff your future selves do in my fic-verse. Speaking of fic-verse, it'd be nice if more people reviewed…there are like twenty of you who have this faved, but I only get like three reviews a chapter. It's a mixed signal, at best. **

**Dante: Ooo, she's whoring for reviews, we can sneak off now, Lady. **

**Lady: Damn it, Dante, do you have to advertise it?**

**& **


	11. Chapter 10

**Fuyuko: Huge-mongous thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and on the story in general! I really appreciated all of your reviews, especially since you all gave me constructive criticism beside encouragement. Keep it up, it's amazing to hear from you all! This chapter is extra long, because I couldn't bring myself to cut it down, but I hope it was worth the wait. **

**Lady: You're still whoring around for reviews? How pathetic. **

**Fuyuko: Bah. That is not whoring. Whoring is what you do with Dante off the script here. **

**Lady: I swear, I'm going to shoot you with Kalina Ann before this is all over. And your arrogant robot, too. **

**Disclaimer-bot: It is not arrogance if one is secure in their superiority and truly is greater than the rest of the worms inhabiting this mudball. Only Capcom corporation, for their creation and ownership of Devil May Cry and its associated characters, is close to my perfection. The author chick does not rank closely for her brainstorming of Giselle, however. **

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle - Chapter Ten**

**& **

"Devil May Cry, you stir it up, we smack it down. The word?"

The half-devil holding the old rotary corded phone ignored the commentating snort his hunting partner made from where she was shooting pool in a game with an unusual twist. Another half-devil, much smaller and babbling with less coherent speech, was seated in the middle of the pool table's green felt surface, tracking and occasionally pouncing after the multi-colored pool balls. It was office hours, and he was bored – so what if he chose to answer potential business calls with a bit more eccentricity than usual? It made the time pass, something he desperately wanted to have happen quicker. He would probably 'close' at seven today, rather than nine, with the way calls had been today, even if he had 'opened' later, starting at eleven rather than eight.

Business was slow today, had been slow yesterday too, and he really did not want a slow week, even if it would have given him extra time at home. He didn't mind being in his office/home with his partner and their adopted child, but he was really bored out of his skull and besides, enough good stuff had happened lately that he wanted to go out and celebrate it. _'What better way to celebrate than by smashing up some demons, getting paid, and buying a pizza or four?' _The half-devil grinned slightly even as he tossed the phone back down from another dud call. He was definitely crazy if that was how he celebrated the good things in life, but then, at least he had someone else who was as crazy a partier as he was now. He could even take her for a date to all the crazy parties.

Dante's grin grew at that, and his blue eyes slid over to happily watch Lady tease their adopted daughter, Giselle, by shooting a three ball string and pocketing the dark blue six ball. The dark-haired woman's body leaned over the table's width to pat the equally dark-haired child on the head, chuckling as the little one babbled happily at her about 'ball-ball rummig, nob here', which probably amounted to wanting an explanation for where the balls went away to when her mother hit them. Giselle had been speaking with more human words ever since her first display, and babbled at both her parents nearly constantly, knowing that they would at least respond by patting her lovingly on the head. She did get frustrated with them sometimes, of course, when her babbled requests where either ignored or answered incorrectly.

It happened, Dante figured, having lately realized how hard it still was to interpret a kid even when they had learned to speak the normal language. Hell, he could even pick up on her emotions and understand her much more fluent demon speech, but it didn't give him an edge at interpreting her over Lady. Then again, Lady was constantly telling him that he was better at catering to Giselle's needs, so it was probably all in both of their heads, each of them feeling like the less-capable parent out of paranoia. _'Must be a normal parent thing, second-guessing your ability to handle the kids,'_ the half-devil grunted as he rose from his seat, meandering over to the pool table.

"Another dud call? Maybe you should call Enzo or Morrison for a job."

"Maybe later. It's only two o'clock, babe. Maybe the demons and the sorcerers haven't gotten out and about yet today."

"Or maybe we scared them all off this past weekend, going out and blasting that bunch at St. Burgess' cemetery." She handed him a pool stick, and he sighted up the white cue ball, winking at their daughter's watching face.

With a 'thok', the ball rocketed forward, whacking the red and green balls almost simultaneously, both of which ricocheted in two new directions. The red ball bounced back after hitting the yellow ball and landed in the left side pocket, while the green continued past the delighted half-devil girl on the pool table's center. She rolled forward onto all fours, crawling after the green ball as it proceed to hit the eight ball, knocking it hard and she changed tack to chase that ball enthusiastically. Dante groaned, however, realizing that he was going to pocket the eight ball way too early. If this had been real pool, he'd have just done himself in, and he ran his right hand through his shaggy white hair in frustration.

Lady chuckled at him, tutting at her loss of another twenty bucks. Used to be that the two of them would bet when they played pool, and no matter how extreme he made the shots, using all of his devilish style and abilities, she nearly always won. To be honest, he was glad that she refused to bet around their daughter, because he had been seriously tired of constantly shelling out the bills and constantly having to shut his mouth about being amazing at everything. It was hard to go on about being superior if someone was standing by who could shoot you down by mentioning your 138 to 6 losing streak in freaking pool. Shooting the last few balls into pockets together, forcing Giselle to sit down in frustration and confusion at the various balls moving around and making it impossible for her to pick one to chase, the two hunters finally replaced the pool cues.

Their little girl crawled over to them, teetering off to her daddy and repeating 'Uhp, uhp, fader-debom,' until Dante scooped her up and nuzzled her, kissing her forehead with a wet smack. She giggled, making a 'muaw' noise and hugely pouting kissy lips after it, which gave her dark-haired mother a rather mischievous idea. She just had to wait for the right moment to strike, and watching her half-devils, she was certain there would soon be a prime opening. Dante was holding their little girl against his chest, although he was losing his effort to keep her there, finally giving up as the excited child clambered up onto his shoulders, clinging to the top of his white-haired head. _'Perfect,'_ the devil hunting woman plotted, _'I'll have to give her a sucker later for distracting her daddy so flawlessly.' _

She moved in on her unsuspecting victim, brushing his arm sensuously to get his attention. He had barely turned to face her, having to turn slowly under his delicate cargo, when she stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him firmly. He grunted at the sensation, stooping at the knees so she could kiss him better, hoping to deepen the lip-lock, when her pale pink lips smirked against his even paler lips, pulling away with a smooching sound, the wet suck and smack of parting lips resounding loudly in the room's quiet. Holding a finger over his still half-open lips, jaw dangling from the sneak attack, she whispered 'muaw' huskily then busted up laughing as it was echoed in far more childish innocence above his head.

Dante grinned too, pulling Lady to his chest tightly and holding her there as he made silly kissing faces a few centimeters away from the usual destination for his lips. If she could tease him, he could tease her, and he was glad again that they had finally admitted their feelings and were no longer dancing around each other nervously. It had been one thing to have the shared comfort of friends, but to have the comfort of two people in love was better. Having teased her to his satisfaction, the devil hunter leaned down to kiss his partner seriously, mouth closing over hers and swallowing the last of her laugh from his tease.

Their lips remained locked for a few moments, but the pair parted with a harried sigh on Dante's half as the office phone rang again, its shrill urgency breaking them apart. The half-devil stomped over to the shrieking device, snatching it up and answering in a surly tone. Lady followed him over, rubbing his shoulders to placate him, not wanting to lose business because of her partner's disgruntled mood. Giselle twisted to babble curiously at her mother, who winced while patting her, silently pleading that nobody had heard the toddler over the phone-line. She and Dante had gone on more hunts again recently, now that the half-devil they had adopted had spent about four months within Devil May Cry and had reliable in-house nannies, but neither wanted her to be discovered either. Everyone was better off if she was kept secret, at least until she was older.

"You're telling me you actually sniffed out a job, Morrison? It's not something lame is it?" She sighed in relief when Dante mentioned his other informant's name, although at the same time, it still made her nervous that even his two employers knew of their adopted charge.

"Right. And where is this job, the boonies?" The white-haired man perched himself on the edge of the office desk, grabbing an aging black leather bound notepad and clicking a pen, scribbling down some directions.

Lady watched with interest, noting that the job was out in the nearby community of Red Hook and was also actually in a neighborhood. Usually jobs that they received closer to NYC itself were focused in shops and restaurants, places that were almost always packed with humans and had plenty of places for demons to hide in. Apparently, watching Dante's loopy cursive crawl across the notepad, a score or so Sargasso heads had moved into the basement of a duplex. Since it was an upper-middle class neighborhood that catered to budding families, the duplex was large, although Morrison assured his employee that the building had been evacuated early on with only a family pet as a casualty.

Dante promised to arrive by nightfall, slinging the phone back onto its brass hooks. He turned to his dark-haired hunting partner, pulling Giselle off his shoulders as he did and cradling her in his arms again. His blue eyes were serious, and he handed her the sheet, so that she could finish reading it over, bouncing their adopted child while he waited. When she had finished perusing his hand-written notes about the case, her own mismatched eyes showed the same serious concern. Joint hunts were also back on their job list recently, and neither would turn this particular case aside to other hunters in New York, but it was hard to leave their little one behind.

"I'll get Nevan and let her know what's going down, babe. You put the cutie here in her crib; she'll be tuckered out enough to take a nap soon." He handed her their charge, who babbled excitedly at the exchange, just as happy with her mother as with her father.

Lady managed to keep her mood light for the little girl's sake, not wanting to upset her and then have to walk out on her for a job. It was very hard to leave a child behind even if you didn't know how distraught it was going to be when you left, but as it stood, she and Dante had the even harder position of knowing how upset it made their little girl when they both left her, from previous experiences. When they had first taken a joint mission again, lured by the humongous payout and unable to safely or efficiently take it on separately, they had come back at around five to find the office in a frenzy.

Agni and Rudra had been clowning around and doing their hardest to distract the wailing half-devil centerpiece from her place on the desk, with Cerberus affectionately licking her all the while, also trying to help out with the consoling effort. Nevan had obviously tried both the bottle and the coddle efforts and gotten nowhere, and Beowulf had been stalking between the doorways to be sure that there was no outward threat to the child his master had taken in. Every one of the devil arms had poised for an attack when the door opened, since Dante had been cloaking his demonic aura as usual, which really hadn't made the situation any better for anyone. Giselle had cried out shrilly upon smelling her parents, her wails nearly doubling in volume and reaching a pitch that shattered Eva's glass photo cover, not abating even when her mother had scooped her securely up. Dante had backed right out of the office doorway again, hissing unhappily at the distress of his child, sitting down heavily on the steps but jumping back up hair trigger when an alley cat knocked over an old paint can, clearly jumpy and distraught himself. Lady had pointed her gun out the office door, aiming over his head at the sound, still not wanting to relax even though she rationally knew, just like her partner did, that nothing had even come close to attacking their child.

With the way the devil arms had been acting, any demon stupid enough to have tried anything would have been burned, blasted, electrocuted, pummeled, and chewed up before being spit out to rot in the street. Still, it rattled them both to come home to find the half-devil child they had adopted and wanted to give as much love and safety to as possible in such a fretful state. Eventually, they had determined that what had upset her was indeed the lack of either of her foster parents being close enough to sense even emotionally, which had only made the situation that much more painful. Joint hunts were tougher, and because of that, they were always more lucrative too, and the unplanned parents desperately needed that extra cash. This meant that joint hunts were an unavoidable part of the future. And it unfortunately meant that they would have to leave their child vulnerable, frightened, and emotionally distraught again and again.

Lady kissed Giselle and backed away from the crib, bumping into a solid chest before its owner brushed past her. While the half-devil foster father and adopted daughter exchanged gentle goodbyes, the dark-haired woman turned to the red-head that had trailed him back to the room. Dressed in a little black dress that left even less to the imagination, the succubus had shook her head sorrowfully and shrugged, not wanting to make an empty promise to a worried mother. _'I'm glad she doesn't try to reassure me,'_ thought Lady regretfully, _'I'd feel worse about it coming back if I went off feeling like everything was going to be okay. It's better for Dante and I to worry and hurry back.'_ Parents that didn't worry about their children had gained a new level of disrespect and disgust in the mismatched woman's eyes, who wondered if they even cared about their own offspring.

"Sweets, I wish I could tell you everything will be alright and to go on your merry destructive ways, but I can't lie to either of you. We'll try to keep her amused, like we always do, but she'll get upset like she always does, too."

"We know, Nevan. It's just like with Vergil and I, it's an instinct to want to protection."

"And all children want their parents, especially at this age. She can't help what's natural and we can't help what we have to do to survive."

The worried parents moved out of the room, silently, Dante hugging onto Lady possessively, supplanting his instinct to protect his nestling with showing affection to his – _'Whoa, D, slow the tapes, and review the film. You can't apply that label to Lady.'_ It was going to be a tense enough ride to the job site already, there was no reason for him to make it more tense. And it would certainly be more unnerving for him if he let his mind wander too far ahead of itself and jump to conclusions about the new romantic relationship with his partner. There were just some things the two of them didn't need to deal with on top of everything else going on, and he knew for certain that Lady wasn't at all ready for what he wanted there.

Dating him, or rather being his reciprocated love interest, since they hadn't yet gone out on a date and the label of dating was a bit out of place for their current status, was one thing. She did get romantic and even physical with him, welcomed his advances in return, but there was still some awkwardness and bashful hesitation in her part of the actions a lot of the time. So moving into an even more physical and intimate level of their relationship was out of the question for now, the half-devil knew, as he zipped around her on the freeway teasing out a high speed game of tag. She hadn't kissed his demonic form yet either, and he knew in his gut that sex with her would drive him to Devil Trigger from the sheer emotions. No, that aspect of their romance was better left out of the gun barrel for now, he internalized. It would only stir up more trouble than either of them could shoot down along with handling everything else.

&

Driving by the cordoned off section of duplexes, the old couple was shocked as the road seemed to shake under their equally old car, an ominous rumble following in the wake of the miniature quake. The salt-and-pepper-haired wife gripped the side-handle of the door, mumbling the Lord's Prayer under her breath as the old man drove just a little bit faster, torn between breaking the speed limit and getting away from the dangerous area. He understood now why it was cordoned off, and he hoped the town hall would get something done about the bad ground soon – it just wasn't safe to have that kind of area in their quiet little town.

As the car left the area, the ground shook again, rocked by another explosion from below the cream-colored wood panels of a particular duplex, whose grey concrete driveway held two red motorcycles. The older Suzuki remained standing stoutly after the second blast, but the newer Kawasaki, which had trembled at the first, finally gave after the second and denying the hold of its extended kickstand it toppled to the cement driveway. It was a pretty good bet that its cherry red paint job was scratched up after the fall, and it was an even better bet that its owner would not be happy to see the scratches. Even half-devil young men valued a sweet ride, especially one like the red custom Ninja.

If bikes had ears, however, the Kawasaki would have had a good position for listening in on the crazy party going on below the two motorcycles. He might not be happy later, but devil hunter Dante was surely enjoying himself right now, guns blaring in all directions and body whirling effortlessly around the Sargasso demon heads. His partner for the party was also enjoying the night's entertainment, luring packs of the heads into corners and then blasting them into dust-motes with her beloved Kalina Ann rocket launcher. Lady rolled away from her latest launched rocket, grinning in wild satisfaction as it detonated upon contact with a single chattering skull and took it out along with the four she had lured in close to it.

Dante dropped down beside her after Rain-storming another group of heads that had tried to hem him in, thinking he was the less dangerous prey. They'd paid for the mistake dearly, the remains of their shattered skull-like forms dissipating upon the floor of the duplex's basement. Seeing a lone head come drifting toward them, the hunter turned at a right angle, right foot planted and left rotating around smoothly, as his left arm arced loosely upwards and snapped Ivory into line with the demon, the shot blasting out over Lady's dark brown-haired head with a loud bang. She switched Kalina Ann out for her submachine at his staccato signal, spraying the pushed back demon and obliterating it utterly. More heads were rising out of the ground, in that circular formation they were so fond of attacking in, and the two hunters pressed their backs together, snickering at how ridiculously easy this hunt was so far.

For a joint hunt, this was shooting fish in a barrel, as the wild partying pair maneuvered gracefully together, contrasting with the sharp blares of gunfire surrounding their forms. Dante fired Ebony upside down over Lady's right shoulder, pegging a farther away head with his modified long-range gun, and she whipped the submachine across her left hip and around his right, bursting apart another head with the continuous fire. She pulled it back around in front of her stomach, the rapid spray of bullets peppering even more head on its horizontally arced path, but the impact was too light to keep many of the heads from advancing. Not really a problem, as she tossed the submachine straight up and whipped out a second high-caliber pistol, and set to work on Two-some Timing the Sargasso, as her partner called the kind of firing.

Dante was doing the same, eyes jumping erratically as he targeted demon after demon with his inhuman speed, unlike his partner, who relied on placing shots by firing at possible target movement points. Both methods worked more than efficiently, and the two hunters found that of the few dozen heads that had risen up, only about a baker's dozen were left. The half-devil grinned as one of the heads he had just shot to bony bits with Ivory moaned loudly in a common demon tongue, unhappy about being smashed up by a Son of Sparda. He loved it when they did that, and he sent it a wave of haughtiness, just to rub in his superiority more. When they all judged him down as the son of a traitor and a weak human, it was more than worth it to beat it into their heads just how good he really was, and he'd never been very humble.

A few more heads focused on him now, but they didn't attack, instead clustering together and chattering wildly in their own tongue. Lady nimbly moved in front of him after chucking a timer bomb at the last pair she had been facing, since they had been a bit closer than she wanted and the blast radius would be too close for comfort. She'd thrown the bomb anyway because the blast would hardly affect her partner. He holstered Ebony to hold onto her, still firing Ivory when one of the heads now facing both hunters moved from the cluster, and true to her expectations, he failed to even twitch when the bomb exploded a minute or so after it landed between Lady's last heads.

"Huh, I guess two heads aren't really better than one, right, Ms. Explosively Sexy?"

"Not in their case, no. But your other head is advising you to never call her that name again, ever."

"What? Ms. Explosively Sexy? But you are! And you know I have to tell the truth, being a demon and all."

He smirked cockily down at her, opening his mouth to make a smart comment about her being his other head and what head she could really get to know on him, when he realized she had brought Kalina Ann to bear again. Instead of placing it directly out in front of herself, however, his partner lowered the gun into a position he remembered all too well from their fight in the Divine Library. He laughed crazily, hand rubbing across her belly affectionately as she launched off a slew of miniature heat-seeking missiles from their ports on the lower sides of the barrel. The projectiles sought ought the demons before the pair of hunters and the heads were bombarded from so many directions at once that it was impossible to dodge all the missiles and they died in a shower of grey-red gore and hard white bone.

The bony shrapnel went out like fireworks exploding, pieces large and small flying around the basement and Dante wrapped his other arm around his partner and leapt out of the way of the first bit to come flying at them with a whoop. Hollering like the lunatic a lot of people thought he was, the half-devil bounced off of the left side wall, spinning in mid-air and landing on the floor perfectly. Lady laughed with him, over the initial shock of his wild dodging and wholeheartedly into the thrill of doing acrobatics at a level even she couldn't pull off. Back-flipping over another shower of bone, the pair rotated sinuously together to stick another perfect dismount, but they had to leap to the side again as more bone pieces came hurtling at them, this time landing side ways on a wall.

"You had better never compete in the Olympics, mister, it'd be hardly fair." She lightly elbowed his ribs at the jibe, and he snickered while running up to the ceiling to avoid yet more shrapnel.

"But babe, you know I never play fair! I fight dirty, because it's just too fun!" To emphasize his point, he bent his head down to the sloping side of her neck, tongue flicking out to lick hotly at her sweat-dampened flesh.

_'She tastes so good, tastes like the way she kicks demon ass, sugar and spice and tons of things not nice girl at all.'_ Dante snickered some more at his private rhyme for his Lady, kissing her neck hungrily now and not stopping even while he dodged the last bits of bone and then dropped them twisting to the floor so they landed like a pair of cats. Hunting with her had always been a hell of a good ride, but if this was what he could expect from now on, he was even more for it than he had been. There couldn't possibly be a pair of people out there who had more fun than they did when they went hunting together, he was sure. And he was sure she liked it too, looking down at the uncontrolled grin lighting her face as they walked out of the basement, ready to get back home to the rest of their family.

&

Arriving back at Devil May Cry, the pair of hunters climbed off their bikes slowly, exchanging nervous glances and silently wheeling the red vehicles around the side of the building. There was a tiny makeshift garage there, something that had been a useless storage room in the converted warehouse that Dante called home and shop, and the half-devil had literally knocked out a section of its alley-side wall to put a cheap lifting garage door in when he'd gotten his custom bike. Like he'd told her at the time, he never had any other use for the room, and he was definitely not going to put his baby in storage anywhere that was under his direct supervision. Lady had snorted at that, and still told him he could at least have done the reconstruction properly instead of his odd DIY job.

Although now that she was living with him, the brunette had to silently admit to herself that it was quite handy how good Dante actually was at fixing things. When they'd first taken Giselle in, he'd stripped the walls of their peeling paper and when she had come back from a hunt a few weeks later she had found him painting over the sheetrock in the back hallway, waiting for the water sealant to dry on the walls in the office front. He was going to put up new wood paneling in there, he told her with a grin, and he wanted to fix up the bathroom too, since it was so popular and all. Since then, she'd found her half-devil partner working on all sorts of little mechanical jobs and things that she could remember an old friend's mother calling 'honey-do's'. Fixing old lamps and ceiling fans, repairing the dishwasher even though ultimately he had to call it quits and call to have it replaced via warranty while Giselle splashed in the water at his feet, tuning up both motorcycles, and replacing the showerhead she'd vehemently told him she would not bath under it with all its grime.

_'It's nice that he's useful for things around the house,'_ she thought as they walked into the office from the old door that led inside from the renovated garage, _'Nicer still that nobody has to tell him to do it, he just does, at least when he realizes it's actually a problem.'_ She'd been very worried early on that he would not take up his end of household upkeep when they'd first adopted their daughter, that he would just let things deteriorate around his ears because she had known from previous visits how old some of the office's appliances were. But what Nevan had said long ago about a woman's touch being a motivator for a man and what she knew was also Dante's own desire to provide everything as perfectly as he could for his family had pushed her half-devil to pickup his share of tasks. No wonder Enzo and a few of their other joint contacts thought the pair of wild and devil may care hunters were becoming domesticated. Especially since now plenty of them also knew how immaculate she was about cleaning house. It was something she'd always done, but she was sure that now everyone attributed it to her being a mommy.

Right. As if Dante and she could ever be normal parents, could ever settle down and be calm, regular, domesticated folks with boring nine to five jobs and two and a half kids. Lady almost ground to a halt at that, watching the half-devil set his sword on its stand and realizing that there just might be more to that thought than she had initially scoffed about. True that he would agree that kids were a bad idea right now, since they both had their hands full just with Giselle, but if they stayed together, if they became a real couple, dated enough to get serious, got serious and then got…what, married? She was a little tied to that particular tradition, having wanted it most of her young life and being raised in a religious family, but would he want it? Furthermore, what about those two and a half kids, did the one they had already count, or was that figure about biological children only…did she want to have children with him?

Yes, she thought after setting down Kalina Ann reflectively, yes she wanted to have children, wanted to have them with a man who understood her and could live with the life she wouldn't give up even if she did have kids. Hunting was a lifetime commitment, and with Dante, who was a hunter himself, whose family had been hunters and who understood her well enough already that dating hadn't been an awkward transition for them, she was sure that she could work and be a mother. A mother to his children, children who would carry their father's legacy…demon blood, which was a thought she coped better with these days, but would Dante want to pass that on? He'd hated it too, hated that it made him inhuman and that his particular bloodline also made him a target for so many demons. It might not be something he wanted to curse his children with, she figured, knowing how he lamented his own burden because of it and seeing firsthand how he tried already to shelter Giselle from the hate she would receive just for being a half-devil.

Tougher question than she had thought, but was also one that could wait, least of all because she and he weren't at the stage to even be thinking of anything other than taking a few dates yet. She was definitely jumping the guns trying to wrestle with that question, definitely focusing on the wrong worries, because she had more important things to worry about here and now, like how they were going to calm Giselle down this time, as she could hear their baby crying already as the pair of them walked silently down the back hallway. The little half-devil wasn't what could be called a screamer, but when she did get upset she put up quite a racket and was very hard to console. Last time the pair of them had been upset enough at finding out how stressed out their adopted child had been that they'd fallen prey to bad parent syndrome and mollycoddled her all night long, even after she'd sniffled herself to sleep. If anyone thought they were getting soft, that night would surely have been the nail in the coffin for their tough reputations, not that either of them cared.

Nevan greeted them outside Lady's room, giving the duo a sympathetic look as Dante opened the door and Giselle's crying assaulted them full-force. She wasn't quite as upset as she had been last time, wasn't wailing as loudly, but the tears were still streaming down her scrunched up and blotchy round face, and she squirmed unhappily while Cerberus' dog-sized form licked at the salty rivers. Agni and Rudra were not in sight this time, nor was Beowulf, and the pair could only surmise that one night of dealing with an infant's hysterics had been enough for the male demons. Lady moved slowly to her child's side, crouching and scooping her up along with the thick quilt Nevan had pulled off of Lady's own bed to set the little girl in. Something black fell to the floor, however, and Dante bent to pick it up before his partner had a chance to worry about what it was, but she watched him fold it carefully and stuff it into his coat pocket, so it must have been something of his. He pat Cerberus on the head, speaking to his Devil Arms in low voices that she tuned out, sure he was just getting a check up on how things had gone exactly.

The half-devil in her arms merited more attention right now and the brunette cuddled the girl close, rubbing her small back soothingly and whispering quietly that everything was alright now, mother and father were here, and they loved her. It hurt to see any child in pain, but because it was her own child and because there really was much of nothing that she could do to solve emotional pain, it hurt so much worse to deal with this. The little girl in her arms sniffled, nose dripping a thick stream of snot and Lady was a little disgusted when she went to bury her face in her mother's chest, inadvertently rubbing the snot into the blouse the hunter was wearing. There were some parts of parenting that were always unpleasant to deal with, but then, it wouldn't be worth it if it was easy, as far as she was concerned. Part of the joy of children, she and Dante were finding out quickly with their small charge, was helping them overcome little hurdles in life, helping them grow through the bumpy spots.

As the young half-devil continued to whimper and cry softly in Lady's arms, her half-devil father came up beside them again, having dismissed and thanked his Devil Arms for looking after his child and wanting to look after her himself now. Well, help his partner look after her, but that was the same thing, because parenting took both of them. His white-haired head leaned down next to his partner's brunette one, waiting patiently for his little girl's sparsely black-haired head to look up and see him there, to see him smile at her gently with the love and protection on his face that he was sending her emotionally. It had been strange to find that she was an empathic demon like himself, but it was a blessing in disguise because it gave him just one more way to talk with her. He wished he could talk with his partner that way sometimes, wished that she could feel his joy when they were together, no matter what they did, even wished she knew how she turned him on when she was fighting demons with the wild ferocity that he loved in her. It would be awkward at first maybe, but it would be worth it for the benefits it would give them in understanding each other more directly. Demons didn't lie because there could be no lies when a good portion of them could sense what you were really feeling and even for a lesser group what you were thinking. They told him his Pops could do that, and he knew sometimes what he picked up wasn't as simple as raw emotion, but he doubted he'd ever be that good.

But then, he doubted a lot of things about himself and his devil's blood, the legacy that he had inherited from his father, even if he acknowledged having it and was willing to accept it for the mixed blessing it was now. There were still plenty of days that he doubted he would be able to really live up to his Pops strength, doubted that he would ever even be half as good, that he would get the hang of demon magic and shape-shifting and even his devil form. Those were bad days, as Lady would say, days when he was just a few steps from laying in bed all day or lumping around the office just waiting for an excuse to go out and get into a beat down with some demons until the past stopped tormenting him. Seeing the glove Vergil had sliced open made him think about those days again, made him think about how he hadn't had one in a while and he wondered if perhaps having Giselle become his charge had been a better thing than he thought it had been. He didn't have time to mope with a small child like her around, that was for sure, and he didn't find himself wanting to as much lately either.

There were better things to do in life than mope around feeling sorry for yourself, he was finding, and the family he had now was more important than crying over the one he had lost. And he wondered, as he smiled at Giselle and watched her eyes dry up a little bit at the goofy grin he had on and then the silly faces he started making, perhaps Lady was right, perhaps there was a way for him to save his family after all. Maybe he couldn't bring them back, he wasn't going to go looking into that now when he had so much on his plate already with a new date and a child, but maybe just living for them and having his own family would help him heal that hole that losing them had put in him. _'Anything's possible, D,'_ he mused, _'As long as you want it and you want it for the right reasons, like mom used to say.'_ Lady would probably agree with that, he figured, hugging her and their daughter tightly and savoring the taste of the love he felt from his family. There was no replacing what was gone, but there was nothing that said he couldn't get back up and live either. If Giselle had her second chance at life with he and Lady, then he was having his second chance with Lady and the little half-devil that had them standing her together like family.

"She's stopped crying. Do you want to stay a little longer?" Lady's voice rang through his content thoughts some minutes later, eyes closed he had drifted off slightly in savoring the gentle moment the three of them were sharing.

"Nah. I guess I'll let you and her hit the sack. It's what I'm going to do anyways, although you pretty chicks are welcome to stay up if you want."

"Hm, no, I'll pass. I'd like to go to sleep and not dream of white-haired goofballs."

"That's a shame, because I was definitely planning on dreaming of sexily explosive babes and was hoping we could meet in dreamland."

He smirked cheekily at her, loving the exasperated expression she passed him for his innuendo. He loved it more when she gave him the look he was starting to know well, the one that said she wanted to be apologized to the right way and she expected a perfect demonstration of his apologizing skills. Still with his smile wide on his lips, he bent forward and pressed them smoothly against her own, tasting her mouth and feeling her respond to his apology gently. Their lips remained locked a few moments longer, a little saliva building up in their mouths as they heated up and their kisses became more passionate, until his tongue swept her lips and then inside her mouth as she opened up to him, her own tongue thrusting back into his mouth wetly. She made that small sigh through her nose that he loved to hear, the one that meant she was enjoying the sensation of locking lips too much to take a proper breath, and he lapped at the roof of her mouth afterwards, slowly pulling his tongue back into his own mouth and rubbing it along hers as they reached the cool down. Lips just gently pressing together again, the pair of them finally separated at the mouths and arms, having said goodnight to each other.

Dante stalked slowly back to his bedroom, hands delved into his coat pockets casually. He was smiling like an idiot, but since no one could see it, he was okay with it, and he continued to grin goofily, feeling lighter than he had in some time. _'Being with babe sure is doing me good,'_ he commented to himself, _'Now if only we could get down to doing our bodies some good too.'_ Okay, not really necessary right away, but it was certainly on his list of things to do if they made it past the first few dates and she was comfortable with his devil form. Would she think that was too soon? Maybe. He knew she had a more traditional upbringing and that she was, for all her wildness and tough attitude as a hunter, still a pretty straight-laced girl. But she had been forward with him before, and he figured that if it just happened that things looked to be running toward sex she wouldn't balk from it…so maybe it would be okay if he just gave a few helpful nudges that way after a little bit?

Tugging off his black shirt and unbuckling his belt with its absurdly large silver cover, the half-devil was a bit surprised to hear a knock on his door. Thinking it was only one of the Devil Arms, who did sometimes come to talk to him after he had gone on a hunt without them and they had wanted to discuss something or in the case of Agni and Rudra just to bug him, he yanked the door open, not bothering to cover what he'd uncovered. Nevan might tell him it was a treat to see him sexy, and Beowulf might scold him for showing himself inappropriately, but neither thing was much of a concern to Dante. To his surprise, and he admitted, slight embarrassment, it was Lady, holding Giselle, although it didn't stop him from firing off his mouth.

"Babe? Is there a reason you're visiting me when I'm clearly half-naked?"

"I'll let that slide, mister, if you just tell me why she's crying again."

"Whoa, how the heck should I know? …She's not hurt or anything, and she isn't whining at me for anything, if that's what you're asking."

"Then why did she start crying again…when you left, she started sniffing and paying more attention to everything and then she started to cry, and…oh."

"Oh?" He had missed something there, he was sure, but she didn't give him a chance to ask, pushing their daughter up against his bare chest and forcing him to hold the child as she slowly walked back down the hallway.

As Lady left, Giselle, who had calmed somewhat during their chattering over her head, started to squirm unhappily and then she whimpered and then she wailed, and he gulped, wanting to hiss and run to get someone to take care of the nestling so that he didn't look guilty. Lady was coming back up the hallway, too, and his mind scrambled for an excuse before his eyes caught his brain up to the fact that his partner was smiling tiredly and wryly, like she'd gotten the punch line of some joke after a long time. Yeah, he'd missed something, he was sure of it now.

"What the heck was that about? She's crying still, you know, and I didn't do anything, I swear!"

"I know that, idiot. But I figured it out, watch." He did.

"…She's calming down." She nodded, chuckling tiredly.

"So. Do we mollycoddle her or do we put up with the increased tears and hope she understands that she can't have us both through the night?"

"Um. Well, you're welcome to sleep with me if you want to not have to deal with the crying…" Too late he realized what else that particular turn of phrase meant, and he swallowed slowly, really hoping she just let it slide or knew that he hadn't meant it to come out that way.

Apparently she did, because she just told him not to get any ideas and then took Giselle back, looking at him pointedly and trying not to be embarrassed while doing it. He fought down the color rising in his own cheeks, telling himself that this was just for their kid and to keep it down, but as soon as he'd thought that he realized how hard it would be to do. He only had one bed, and well, he could sleep on the floor, he guessed. Or in that chair he had dragged back here one day when he'd not wanted to sit in the front office where the phone or customers could detract from his thoughts. He stepped back and let both women into his room, glad that he'd down laundry yesterday and that his floor was devoid of underpants. The rest of his clothes he could care less if Lady saw, but there was this pair of boxers that he'd just about die if she ever saw their smiley-faced surface.

"It's clean." Lady commented to him in a tone that didn't quite conceal her shock, looking around his room. The carpet was red berber, and the walls were red…velvet. Well, she had told him his coat looked like a pimp outfit and he hadn't been fazed, but this, this was probably too much. The bed sheets were wine red too, though the comforter hanging half off the end of its king-size mattress was solid black. There was an old beige armchair in the corner, near a window, and there was a bookcase, of all things. She itched to see what he had on it, besides the knick-knacks and an old pair of guns on a shelf all by themselves…they were identical to his own customs she realized with a blink.

He must have traced her gaze, because he sighed and spoke up in explanation, "Luce and Ombra, also for Tony Redgrave, although they're for the real deal, not the imposter from L.A. They were Pops' guns."

Mutely, she nodded, hoping she hadn't offended him but happy to know a bit more about his family and what he treasured of what he had left of it. There was also something that looked like a child's photo album, and she was certain it too held some family memories that he would rather not have talked about right now. It really was still early in their new relationship, they had time to talk about the things they hadn't brought up concerning family, and right now they probably should arrange how they were going to sleep in the same room. _'Sleep together,'_ a part of her mind whispered, _'It's not like you're going to do that while Giselle's here, but you want to sleep next to him, you know it, it'll be harmless and comfortable.'_ Right, because they would surely be comfortable enough with both their nerves on high tension to sleep next to each other, on the same bed, his bed no less, didn't that just scream unsavory to be sleeping in your almost boyfriend's bed?

Maybe not. She turned to him, only to find he had moved to lounge in the armchair, blue eyes trying to slip closed, but they kept jarring open and it would be unfair to make him sleep in that old thing. Damn, she was going soft, wasn't she? Well, as long as she could still kick demon ass in the morning and didn't go all bleeding heart on saving all life she could live with a little softness here.

"Dante. You're not going to sleep in that thing. It's old and probably filthy and besides, as long as you don't grope me I promise you'll wake up intact in the morning. So get over here, idiot." Okay, not so soft, but she had limits.

He blinked at her, like maybe her head had split in two. At least he did at first, but as she snorted and sat down gingerly on his red sheets, he grinned a bit sheepishly and then ambled over like a hesitant kid wanting to sleep with his parents during a thunderstorm. As she laid back against one huge red pillow, she felt weight settle on the opposite side of the bed, and the black comforter was kicked down further, really falling off the end it had been clinging tremously to, the red sheets scrunching as he laid back too. She snorted, wanting to laugh at how sensitive her loud-mouthed, trash-talking, womanizing partner was being about this when she was relaxed – it was too funny how they had switched places completely over such a simple thing. Giselle was cradled in her arms, yawning with the fatigue of her earlier crying fits, now that she felt safe enough to drift off with both of her parents there to hover over her. Lady wondered if they were spoiling her by sparing the rod this one time, but then, she felt it was wrong to punish their child for something that was ultimately their fault and just her instinctual need for her parents' protection.

"Erm. Is it okay if I hold you? This is kinda odd."

"Big idiot. Of course it's okay. I know how you like to cuddle, like the giant teddy bear you are."

He laughed at that, some of his nerves easing off as he rolled onto his side and wrapped one arm around her waist, hand brushing Giselle where she laid close to Lady's belly. Before he could ask, the brunette had sat up a bit, shifting to turning her onto her own side and allowing his to slide his other arm under her neck, pulling her back down against his chest, resting her neck in the crook of his elbow. The hand that had brushed against Giselle's form came up enough to lay across the child's back where she was pressed close to her mother's chest, who was in turn tucked under her father's chin and with her back close upon his chest.

The parents relaxed like their adopted daughter, not feeling as awkward as either of them had anticipated, holding each other lovingly and they both realized at once that this was what they had been looking for, that this was the little piece of home and family that they had quietly longed for since losing their own families. It might still be dysfunctional, but this was family, and as they both had come to learn throughout their lives, there was nothing more important than family. Holding onto their family, holding on to this peaceful moment, the pair of devil hunters quietly watched their daughter drift into dreamland, and they were so calm that neither could remember falling asleep in each other's arms the next morning. But they didn't complain about it either, simply smiling at each other as they stretched with the dawn and held onto their little family just a little longer.

**& **

**Fuyuko: Tell me what you thought of this one, guys. In particular, I'd like to know how you like the start of the second section. I like the external non-main character viewpoints, but it still seems awkward to me, and for that I kinda hate it. **

**Lady: You wrote it, you could have taken it out if you hate it so much. Unlike me, who doesn't even get a choice about who she's kissing in your sick little fanfic. **

**Fuyuko: Bah. Quit griping, I know you like it, just as much as Dante does. Although, if you keep it up I might have to tell him you'd be okay with Vergil too and see what he does then. You'd probably like it, though, so no punishment there, eh? **

**Lady: You're disgusting. The only good thing about Vergil is that he doesn't chew on pizza and slug back tomato juice like water. I'd still take Dante over the ice princess any day…gah! **

**Fuyuko: See? You admitted it. Sorry for the lateness, folks, but I'm getting back into school so expect updates less frequently, after these next couple of chapters.  
**

**& **


	12. Bonus 1

**Fuyuko: Had fun writing this…especially the drinks part, which was odd as I don't drink and generally do not get the concept of how it is a fun activity. I have no basis for making Lady a mixed drink gal, I just did it. And if you must know, the songs I listened to while writing this were Look to the Sky, Sandstorm, two Butterfly songs, Switch, and MIB. **

**Lady: Great. I think I don't need to be drunk around you, anymore than anyone else does. **

**Fuyuko: Yeah, it does kind of lead people to getting really pretty marker doodles on their faces. Hm. Wonder if anyone would do art of this fic. Or of Dante and Vergil as MIB. Hot twins in matching suits….you know you think that's hot. **

**Lady: If they weren't a pair of psychotic demon jerks, maybe. And it's doubtful anyone will do art of this, there's not much to imagine, just a bunch of random fan-service cliché scenes. Where's that stupid bot? **

**Disclaimer-bot: I resent being referred to that way, as my intelligence far exceeds your own. It is why I can declaratively disclaim that all rights to Dante, Lady, and Devil May Cry belong to Capcom, much to the disappointment of many a fanfiction writer and fanartist. **

**& **

**Devil in the Cradle Bonus 1 – First Date **

**& **

"Are you positive it was good idea to leave her with Nevan and the rest?"

"Of course, babe. Relax, they'll take good care of the little squirt. 'Sides, you're way too tense to be in this joint."

He knew it wasn't all because of the small half-devil charge they'd both left behind somewhat unwillingly, but he let it slide, wanting her to loosen up and knowing mentioning the other reason would just make her that much more high-strung. This was going to be a good time. He'd promised her it would be worth it, gone through too much wheedling to let it go to waste. Thumping trance and house-beats poured out over their ears, swirling colored lights and the irregular flash of a strobe poorly illuminating their bodies as the pair strode into the popular underground club.

The bouncer knew Dante, had been helped out with a few toughs once or twice by the white-haired young man, and he let them slide in without the customary display of ID. If the dark-haired bombshell was with Dante, then she wouldn't be a problem – guy never started trouble, it just seemed to end up in his hands – the large man figured, giving a nod at the pair. Nodding back, the white-haired young man made his way over to the bar and lounge, weaving through the mill of people to one of the high tables instead of his usual spot at the counter. He waited until Lady had nimbly and gracefully gotten up onto one of the equally high chairs before seating himself with less climbing, being tall enough to sink sideways into the seat.

He grinned at her face; It was still clouded by some doubts about their outing, but for the moment at least, it was also relaxed, nicely contrasted eyes flicking slowly around and observing the bar area. It certainly wasn't what she'd thought of when he'd said they could eat at the club's bar. In Lady's mind, only in part because she knew the man across from her, bars didn't have classy soft vinyl-cushioned stools or intricately designed stainless steel overhead glass racks. They certainly didn't have tiny café style high tables with comfortable seating for dining for a few, glass tops covering the rock, trance, hip-hop, and other music records layered onto the original wood tabletops. It was a nice switch from what she envisioned, the young woman decided, smiling back at Dante.

A flirty college-age waitress came over to the table, passing them menus and standing open a needless drink list on the decorated surface, eyes shamelessly roving over the white-haired man's form. Noticing this errant behavior, the dark-haired lady across from him smiled stiffly with false politeness, cheerily thanking the girl for taking their drink orders of a dark lager and a fruity cocktail, for which a pair of white brows rose amusedly at her.

" 'Devil's Tail'? Babe, I don't have one of those, trust me."

She snorted, not too bothered by his characteristic leap onto the open target her drink choice had been. Lady could handle his cheesy wise-cracks these days. "Well, that's a relief. I think we wouldn't get past the first date if you did – I'm not into that sort of thing." Hell, she could even play along with the sarcastic teasing.

"Wonder if the waitress is…I bet she'd be good in bed, with that rack," the half-devil's inhuman blue eyes laughed at his human dinner date, prodding the other opening he'd observed when they'd first gotten waited on. "I mean, if nothing else, it would be fun just to watch them bounce while we…"

"Right, and I'm so sure you'd love it when Blonde Boob-job's fake ones busted during the rough roll in the sack bit. Especially when she whined about it." Not an excellent comeback on her part, but the female demon hunter felt it was justified and sufficient, considering her mind was still seething with her jealousy and at the fact that he'd deliberately tried to start something upon noticing it. He grinned winningly at her, sharper than human canines glinting devilishly in the crazed lighting sifting throughout the club. She was positive Blonde Boob-job would be thrilled to see that too, if she ever did get taken home by the more-than man she'd been flirting with.

"I think I'll pass, now that you mention it. I only love a fast and furious woman, the kind that can keep up and satisfy during a wild romp under the covers," The grin was overgrown now, almost Cheshire cat-like in its near manic glee, "Especially this one with dark hair and odd sexy eyes."

"Anyone else saying that would have a broken mouth right now, you know that, you lunatic? I guess," She paused and pondered briefly the best way to get an equal innuendo back at him, "I guess it's good for you that I like classical Roman statues."

Dante opened his mouth, on the verge of asking her exactly what it was she liked about them – the perfect faces, the great poses, or the stunning nude bodies – when the previously discussed waitress returned, still pouring the charm out on him. Not exactly wanting to see Lady get homicidal over a little bit of flirting, the usually womanizing fellow turned out a heavily disinterested attitude to the obviously fake blonde's pathetic attempts. _'Anyways, she's really not my type, like I told Ms. Explosively Sexy over there,'_ He chuckled inwardly at his latest nickname for Lady, recalling with glee how explosive she had gotten when he'd shouted it at her across a horde of demons a few nights ago. The lowly Sargasso heads hadn't stood a chance when she'd decided to take out her consternation at his tease by bombarding a pack of them with Kalina Ann's targeting mini-missiles, and the devil hunter himself had gotten quite a blast out of dodging the bony shrapnel they'd spewed forth.

Having gotten their dinner orders in, and miffed at being shut-out by the handsome devil, their waitress departed, which let the two finally snicker at her expense. Lady had seen him shut the overly forward woman out with no small degree of joy, and laughingly admitted to herself that it had been silly to think he'd wanted the undesirable attention. Dante was a flirt and a perverted womanizer a lot of the time, but he was also not the type to actually go around picking up useless chicks just for their looks or possible willingness for one-night stands. That she had found out long ago, when she'd stalked him to the Love Planet once, angry as hell at having to chase him to that place for a lousy debt he hadn't been paying up, only to find him mostly ignoring the scantily clad women there in favor of whining to Enzo about a boring job the informant was trying to put him on.

_'I'd almost think he hasn't dated at all, seeing him turn aside the throngs of women that come jumping at him,'_ It was an odd realization, but she couldn't help her curiosity, especially given their own new step into a more serious and decidedly not platonic relationship. He was only a couple of years older than her, and she knew for a fact he had never had any sort of traditional schooling, given that he was running around as a self-induced amnesiac mercenary during his early teenage years. Still, it didn't mean her half-devil date – she was not going to label him a boyfriend and they were definitely not lovers – hadn't dated before. He probably had, and they had probably been older women with experience, a thought that suddenly had Lady feeling nervous, though she was loath to admit it. She had never dated herself, having been enrolled in a more than strict all-girls private school, and then devoting the last bit of her teenage years to hunting down the man who'd killed her mother.

Maybe some level of concern was showing on her face, because her date cocked his head slightly and inquired as to the state of her mind in his own taunting fashion, weighting the question by inferring that she was one bullet short of a full clip. She playfully sniped back at him that if she was short by one, he was missing the entire clip, especially for going out with her if he thought she was crazy. Surely he'd had better dates, she gently prodded, not comfortable asking him to outright divulge the information. _'Honestly, this whole thing is still somewhat awkward,'_ she mused as he appeared to silently ponder how best to answer her subtle inquiry, _'And I really hope it doesn't go south. …I do want to stay friends with him, if…well, we'll see.'_

"Actually, Lady, I did have a few dates back in L.A., some good and some God-awful. But, eh, Tony's dead, and so are all his past social stints." Might not have been the explicit answer she was looking for, but it did satisfy the unspoken uncertainty he had sensed off of his date, which was really all that he was comfortable settling now. _'Later, maybe, we can discuss old flames, but I really don't wanna know about other guys that've been hot with her.' _He managed not to snarl at the thought, feeding ravenously on his own intense surge of jealousy, hoping she hadn't seen his jaw clench reflexively at the emotion.

Their dinners arrived, nothing overly fancy, since this wasn't exactly a rich man's playground, despite its nice design, but both of them still found the meals satisfying. Dante had already polished off his lager, but had declined a second mug, even if he didn't need to worry about drinking too much and ruining a good date with trashed behavior. Lady had requested some water to chase down her fruity cocktail, not feeling tipsy, but not wanting to hit a dance floor with only alcohol in her system. Waiting for her to finish her meal and new drink, the half-devil lounged bonelessly back in his tall chair, blue eyes scanning the dance floor and its writhing occupants. A somewhat popular trance tune was just reaching its culmination, the electronic music squeaking out of the speakers along with some breathy vocal track, obviously a personal addition by the DJ, not that it was poorly received.

He definitely preferred rock, but as long as it had a beat that could set his blood to thrumming and maybe his feet to moving, the half-devil really didn't mind other music. Idly he wondered what type of music Lady liked, not seeing that she had any particular reaction to the current track. Dante waited until she'd finished her last bite of grilled chicken sandwich then nodded toward the DJ's turntable as he asked her what she thought of the song, wanting to return the subtle and un-intrusive questioning style she had allowed him earlier. _'It'll be nice to really get to know her as her and not just hunter her, now that we're dating,'_ he shooed away the pessimistic worry that this would turn into a one-hit-wonder event, _'…And it'd be great if it lessened how many damn stupid small talk conversations we have.' _He didn't mind that they teased each other, or that they often spoke in less than appropriate analogies, but he didn't want all their conversations to be that way, either.

"It's alright. A bit too shrill, and I can't stand that stupid moaning track he has laid over it, but it's alright for a beat. I'll take alternative or rock any day over trance, though."

"Hm. I knew you were my kind of woman, hot legs. You ready to hit the wood with those?" Their tab had been delivered now, and he swiped it up in a slightly slowed version of his usual high-speed blur, slipping a stack of bills into the tray beneath the receipt. She glared at him, recalling quite well that they'd agreed to do this Dutch, but letting it slide for the moment.

She could always have Nevan put her share back into his bank account later, though she doubted the succubus would comply without coercion. She'd been ecstatic upon discovering Dante wanted to take Lady on this date, and had willingly volunteered to baby-sit. Laughing huskily at the grateful but embarrassed couple, she'd even offered to be available the whole night, if they wanted the time. Lady had been flabbergasted, uncharacteristically wanting to sink through the floor, and even Dante had seemed thrown by embarrassment, but he's managed to make it known that was unnecessary, despite the deep pink stain on his high cheekbones and ears.

"Why not, I can't possibly be as bad a dancer as you are," the dark-haired woman smirked challenging at the white-haired man as they departed from the lounge and bar, bee-lining through the crowd as they approached the dance floor, feeling as well as hearing the pound of the music now. It was partly to work up her own confidence, since she really had never done this before, and the one public school dance she'd been invited to by a neighborhood friend in middle school was no comparison to this crushing eddy of twisting human bodies.

"Ha. I can bust a move with the best of them, hot legs. I'm a sexy beast, remember?" He shook his white-haired head at her in mock reproach, applying a nickname to her again as his eyes took in the sway her hips had picked up, more than happy to be following her dark-haired head onto the dance floor now. It was no secret that he admired a hot body, especially a female one, but the fact that it was her made it that much bigger of a deal to him, and he secretly wished that someone would put on a song where grinding on you partner was the norm.

Finding themselves unable to realistically move farther out onto the wood dance floor without elbowing a path, the slightly swaying and tapping duet made themselves comfortable in the space they'd gotten stuck in, movements increasing with the press of the crowd. Dante did indeed know how to bust a move, going from foot tapping and head jamming to pumping his shoulders slightly, bouncing on his feet like a boxer, feeling the fast-paced song sound through his body. Lady's hips still moved, the sway more of a rocking now, legs and feet moving out a bit and back in with simple steps, torso wiggling a tiny amount with the movement stirring up from her hips. The song's simple uplifting tune, punctuated with a synthesized set of vocals in a woman's airy soprano, set the crowd around them to gyrating fluidly. The two devil hunters found themselves swept up in the motion, not minding as the crowd's motion pushed them a little closer together.

As the DJ faded seamlessly into the next track, the thumping beat of its intro bars saw a number of obvious dance partners get even closer, sweat-dampened bodies sliding against each other as the rhythm increased. At the dramatic halt preceding the next wave of the song, Lady found that Dante had followed suit with a number of other men on the dance floor, sidling up behind her, letting his hands slip around her waist gently. The pace was increasing again, and even as she began to move with the now frenetic beat, head bouncing around and body all out writhing, her nerves bubbled up at the touch. It wasn't unpleasant or even intentionally crass, but all the same, she wasn't sure she was ready for the contact. His own body was mere millimeters away from hers, the fronts of his thighs to the backs of hers, forcing the two of them to step in the same rhythm. It was an awkward way to dance for Lady, trying as she was to keep their hips from grinding together. _'I'm definitely not ready for him to be getting cozy with that idea.'_

"Relax, babe. I'm not trying to eat you up. I'm trying to keep the other dudes from eating your sexy self up." Dante had sensed his partner tense at his unannounced increase in their bodily contact, and while he understood somewhat why she had tensed up, he wasn't about to ease off. He hadn't been kidding about the other guys on the dance floor eyeballing Lady, and he wasn't going to let them touch her, period. _'It's like they say, the devil is a possessor. And I never did like to share.'_

A new song had been laid over the first one, the clash of the two beats somehow more enticing than the original had been by itself, and the devil hunter found himself moving fluidly with the heavy mix of guitar and drums, a now obvious rock tune pushing out over the already loud volume of the techno song. He'd gotten pretty wild with rock music before, and he found it was a pace that still came easily to him, upper body thrashing frenziedly to the raging tones. His hands tightened on Lady's hips, feeling her pick up on the new song and marveling at how well she flowed into dancing to it, rhythmic full-body gyrations just as emotive as his wilder thrashing but much smoother, carrying a hint of sexuality. He wondered if she knew what it looked like, wondered if she knew how plain dead sexy it was, wondered if she even knew that was why a ton of the men around them were staring at her hungrily.

He chewed on the anger that thought built up in him, latching onto Lady's more relaxed emotions as a distraction. The half-devil delighted in the feel of her surge of happiness at the bouncy dance beat they were now jumping to, literally forced to take tiny hops off the floor with the bass's over-powered thumps, glad that she was finally enjoying their night out. It took some of the edge off of his nerves to know that she was having a good time, because he'd wanted this to be a treat for her, besides just a date and maybe, on some level, an escape for them from baby duties. He wouldn't trade their current lives for the world, but he also knew that staying holed up in the office and only going out for work and chores was going to drive them both insane. More importantly, he'd decided to bring her here because it was a popular club with people their age, and he sometimes felt his more serious demon hunting partner needed to get out and live a normal young person's life around her peers occasionally. He wasn't even fully human, didn't belong with other people at all, and he got out to the social scenes like this more often than she did, which was a crying shame in his mind.

The current song slowed, its bouncy beat breaking like bubbles into a more hip-hop tune, and the two hunters both heard themselves half-groan. Lady chuckled at this, realizing that they had more in common music taste than just a liking for rock, although this particular song wasn't too bad. They stayed on the dance floor, getting bumped a bit by some of the other dancers, who were bouncing around with their hips and lower torsos. Lady glanced black at Dante's face, seeing him smile at her, but watching his eyes slide away to track some other movement to their right. Her own head and eyes spun to follow his line of sight, seeing a pack of young women whirling their hips in wide swooping circles and even shaking their breasts, giggling insanely at the amount of testosterone being directed toward their deliberately sultry act. Huh. Like she couldn't play at that game, too?

"You know, Dante, you shouldn't watch other girls shake their asses. You might miss mine doing it." She had no idea her voice could be so husky and raw, but then, she'd never tried to be seductive before. She honestly had no idea why she was trying it now, dreading the fool she was going to make of herself, but not able to back down now that she had his attention pulling back to her. _'Well, you'll just have to bite the bullet now, and shock the hell out of him. You're good at blowing his mind.' _

Literally, too, she recalled with a tight smile, pulling her body away from his slightly, his arms extended between them. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her bounce her hips back and forth, feeling strangely pleased at the knowledge, and increased her movement, stepping to the side with her legs alternately and sashaying her hips widely almost into an arc. Knowing he was fully focused on the movement of her butt now, she dipped down towards the floor with her hips angling back and legs spread slightly, before shooting back up and checking her embarrassment at the act. Some part of her mind nagged that she had just made herself look like an idiot. Who was she kidding, think she had the hips or skills for something like that? Booty-dancing was obviously not a forte of hers, and she went to slow and small swings of her hips, hoping to downplay her folly when she was wrapped up in a pair of inhumanly powerful arms, a hot but not sweaty body pressed against her passionately. His thighs pressed up against hers again, but this time he didn't hold back the rest of his lower body, lean hips pushing onto her round buttocks.

Lady's dark-haired head jerked back at the touch, feeling him press on her, and realized his own head was leaned down to hers, catching his eyes and seeing a hot shimmer in them. Dante grinned sexily at her and deliberately ground his pelvis into her backside, setting them to gyrating and grinding together, now pressed fully back to chest as a new techno beat began pouring out. The couple of devil hunters made an enticing and erotic scene as they moved in unison, fit young bodies tearing up the small space of dance floor they had secured for themselves. The two were largely oblivious to it, however, smirking only a little at knowing they were the big scoop at the club tonight, and continuing their eye-catching performance for the next couple of hours. It was a good evening out, they both thought upon finally returning to Devil May Cry, even if they both crashed into their beds in a daze.

**& **

**Fuyuko: Yeah, that was a blast. Wish first dates were like that in real life, or well, no, not really. It's only hot because its got you two. **

**Lady: I'm so glad you're that into us. It's really not disturbing at all. **

**Fuyuko: Oh I know. But I also know you two love the love the other fans and I give you, sick as it is sometimes. As always, review and let me know what you think. **

**& **


	13. Chapter 11

**Fuyuko: Despite its excessive length, I generally love this chapter. It's, well, it surprised me when I was done with it.**

**Dante: That doesn't sound like a good thing, actually.**

**Fuyuko: Oh, but it is. Because if what I wrote surprises me with its twists and quality of content, then it is truly good, it is something that can hopefully be read again and again.**

**Dante: Right. You're a strange one, you know that? You and that robot.**

**Disclaimer-bot: I profess that the author chick is indeed quite weird. She obsesses over not real men and women and ignores those that are tangible near her. However, focusing on her oddity is not my business, as I am instead merely here to disclaim that Capcom owns Devil May Cry, Dante, and Lady, and that the author is merely borrowing them to babysit her own character Giselle.**

**&**

**Devil in the Cradle – Chapter Eleven**

**&**

In the cool, if smoggy and grey, pre-dawn that arose over New York nearly a month later, Dante had just picked Giselle up for her morning meal when he got that sensation in the back of his neck. He'd call it something like having the hairs on your neck raise up, except that usually constituted fear, rather than the triggering of one's urge to fight. Kissing her forehead, the half-devil placed the curious little girl back in her crib.

**"Stay here, nestling. Be quiet, father-demon has to hunt in quiet."**

Quieting his devil powers so that he could hopefully have some element of surprise, Dante proceeded towards the front of the shop, grabbing Ebony and Ivory along the way, holstering them in the waistband of his tight red pants. It was awkward and the muzzles dug into his hips, but it was the only option he had when he was still barely dressed for the day other than going unarmed, and he'd be damned if that was going to happen. He left Lady asleep, too, not out of arrogance, but because of a foreboding sense that she was better off as far away from whatever was going to happen as possible. _'Probably just paranoia, D, just your head messin' with you over the past.'_

Still, even though things were quiet in coming down the main hallway from the back rooms, it didn't mean he could relax. The half-devil knew better than to ignore the continuing tingle in the back of his neck in favor of his own self-assurances. His instincts had never led him wrong when it came to demons, while his head on the other hand…well, he was half-human too, and the human mind was constantly playing the fool when it came to demons. He'd never forget the only time he tried to rely on his human mind instead of his devil's instincts when fighting a horde of demons. Sure, they had been higher levels, smarter and with more tricks than the usual culprits, but it had still been a rotten idea to take them on without at least acknowledging his demonic instincts.

Reaching the front of the office, the half-devil's blue eyes tracked around the wood-paneled room slowly, his head remaining focused on the front door. It was really unlikely that what had sent his nerves jangling was going to come in that way, but it didn't really help him focus if he was jerking his head around wildly looking for something he didn't even know was there. He had long ago found that he was more sensitive to sudden changes if he kept his body stationary and let his ears and eyes sense around him as they were capable of doing. There were no funny sights he could see, even with his infrared vision, no weird influxes of heat showed up. The lamp overhead flickering didn't count, as its now lone bulb had been ready to go since its twin had a few days before. There were no odd sounds that he could hear, just a pipe dripping in the kitchen and the toilet gurgling in the back, the sewer's backed up plumbing from last evening's downpour echoing through the old bathroom fixture. He'd told Lady he would get both toilet and lamp fixed, but neither had happened yet.

Still, he couldn't shake the nagging tingle in the back of his neck, and he half-turned to go ask the Devil Arms if they had also sensed something out of place. Not that he was really sure something was even out of place, although he was sure his instincts were not giving him a useless warning – demons didn't do paranoia, and he didn't get the willies for no damn reason. His feet were silent as they crossed back by his desk, walking quietly no large feat for him, even with his heavy boots covering them. _Big freakin' feet for stomping big freakin' demons in their faces,_ he thought laughingly, recalling what Lady had said about him and being a possible cause for Bigfoot rumors when they'd decided to give each other foot massages just a few days ago. It had been deliciously good fun, especially getting her to moan softly and just about purr into the massage he had given to her ankles. Who knew something so simple could be so damn erotic?

They'd gone from massaging feet to massaging each other's lips gently, then she'd straddled him and they'd started to rub together lower down. He'd been surprised when she ground the split center of her legs against the bump centered in between his own, but pleasantly so, and he'd responded well. Dante recalled the sensation of his hips jerking up under hers, the sliding friction that had built between them, and the other things that had come into play as they heated up, licking his lips as he stalked closer to the room where his Devil Arms laid. They'd stopped, of course, neither he nor Lady quite ready to jump each other yet, not when they had only been on a handful of normal dates and not when she had only just begun to get used to touching and kissing his devil form.

He shook his white-haired head, having other things to focus on, and he was glad he had focused back in as a whirling whistle sped closer to him. He jumped straight up, grabbing the ceiling and digging in with nails that he lengthened temporarily for the extra grip. His toes had become the three full talons, he noted mildly, grinning down at the revealed demon. An Enigma, staked out over by his drum kit, already reloading to fire at him again, even as he scrambled across the ceiling and launched himself down on top of its single eye. He blasted the extra large peeper open with Ebony and Ivory, triumphant grin slipping when he heard sand pouring out and demons groaning behind him. More demons?

Not just a few rogue ones, he saw, spinning to focus on their approaching forms. It wasn't right, it was just not possible for this many to be inside Devil May Cry with the wards up on it these days, the half-devil hadn't left the defenses down or let them get shoddy at all since Lady and Giselle had been staying here, not once. So how was this large of an attack group inside his office, his nest? His lips twisted in a snarl, holstering ivory to cast a few spells. There was no reason to worry over this, no matter what his nerves and his gut told him, and he didn't need to get Lady involved at all, period. He cast the spell as delicately as he could, wrapping it around her room like cotton balls as he fired off precision shots at the oncoming demons. One of them tried to lunge forward and swipe his head off his shoulders, but that would never work on him, and he punched its stupid masked face right in.

The body flew back as it burst into sand, layering its fellows with the shower and knocking them a little off balance. It was enough for him to complete his first spell and hide it, then move on to another one. Barring that the sound barrier didn't quite work out, he still wanted Giselle to sleep through this peacefully and not feel the innate terror a helpless nestling had of attacking demons. Even more carefully, he cast a simple spell that he knew by heart from having to cast it on himself with a modified wake-up call in its workings on those days he knew he would have otherwise tossed and turned with nightmares of his past. No wake-up call for the magic sleep this time, because he could handle this and go wake her up himself in no time.

Dante grinned, pulling out his guns again and targeting his opponents with his usual cocky flare. So what if his gut told him this was no joke, no game? He could still take these small-time punks out, no problem. His babe and their baby would never even know anything had gone down, which was just fine. He had it under control, and he launched himself at his foes, determined to keep them from causing his family grief.

&

When the first few had broken past him and headed for the back rooms, he'd freaked out and jumped after them, lunging forward and silently screaming for Rebellion to come to his hand as it stretched toward them. It had come, and he'd cut them down ruthlessly, but there were more, and they were piling up at his back, and he couldn't fight them off all on his own. Or he didn't think he could. He'd failed them before, failed to protect his loved ones from demons before, fallen like a useless child under a scythe while his mother's scream faded to black…He grit his teeth against the insidious memory as it crept up in his mind like primeval ooze, hacking and firing his guns with renewed vigor. He wasn't a child anymore, and he was more than capable of taking on small fry, he knew that, so why did he think differently now?

Still, more had managed to slip around him, and try as he might to corral this himself, it would be better if he just undid the spell that was keeping the sounds of the fight out of her room and let her help him. She would be livid if he didn't let her help out, and still furious that he had kept it from her this far, but that was nothing compared to what he would feel if one of them did manage to get back far enough to butcher her. He swung Rebellion in a wide arc, cutting up the few in front of him, switching to hold it with one hand and whirled it effortlessly next to his side, the long blade cutting into those nearest his body, including another back sneaker. He snarled at another one, blasting it with Ebony and Ivory until its corpse-like visage burst open into sand.

The frustrating part now was, even if he wanted to drop the spell, he couldn't; his hands were tied just taking out this huge lot of crazy partiers. _'Where the hell are Nevan and the others?! Damnit, I can't do two things at once here!' _And waking Lady was certainly looking like it was a much better idea than he'd first figured it would be. If only his Devil Arms were here, he could actually get the spell unwoven, and with all this racket there'd be no need to wake his partner up, she'd hear it and be out here in minutes, seconds even. Dante blasted another demon in the face, shoving Rebellion into its guts repeatedly until it split in a dozen places, liquid oozing on the floor as it died. But it was replaced almost instantly by another, summoned by one of the Greed's that had popped up near the back. The devil hunter rapid-fired Ebony at the summoning demon but his open area for placing the shots was soon covered by the encroaching horde of the rest of the demons, and he was forced to deal with his closer enemies.

Desperate to kill off one of the roots of his problems with the increasing numbers of demons present in the office, he holstered Ebony and Ivory and went straight for the throats before him with his sword. He uppercut the one nearest to him, slicing it in half and moving forward over its remains, stomping on the split halves of its head to make sure it didn't get back up. He hadn't bothered to see what type it was, and an Envy would only regenerate itself from that kind of cut – it hadn't been a clean split, some of the inner torso muscles clinging to each other and the spine still in one piece. It was dead now, that he was sure of, nothing much survived having its head crushed like an overripe melon, and he had moved on to the ones behind it.

The trio of Prides organized themselves around him, blocking with their scythes irritatingly and he only managed to nick the one in its bony upper shoulder. The two on his sides swung at once, and he instinctively knew that jumping up would only get him hacked by a downward slash from the middle attacker – so he jumped for it instead, Rebellion's tip going first, gouging into its stomach and out its back with a crunch. He'd severed the spine that time. _'Good,'_ he thought with a twisted grin, _'Maybe I'll get somewhere with the trash out of the way.'_ He spun swiftly, sword chopping into the two he'd had to avoid earlier, the demonic blade slicing through their dark clothes with loud ripping noises, then through their tissue and organs and bones with an even louder squelch and scraping of steel on almost steel-like demon bone.

Not interested in watching the pair fall apart as dust motes, he drove forward again, whipping out Ivory and blasting the Sloth that had tried to literally get the drop on him by teleporting in. It moaned and he slashed it diagonally across the chest with Rebellion single-handed, light-bulb clicking on in his head as it fell back fully onto the floor. Tossing his sword up across his broad shoulders, he pounced on the Sloth's prone form, not caring that his steel-toed boots left more than petty dents in it already cut up body, and kicked off roughly, pulling out Ebony as he rocketed forward on his demon skateboard. The guns blared to life in his hands, staccato sounds of bullets ripping from the barrels accompanied by duller thuds of the shells pounding demon hide and even wetter sounds of tearing flesh. He grinned wildly as he came closer to his target, but kept firing, never missing a shot and more than pleased to see a good number of the weaker hells crumbling under the assault.

Finally he was within range of the Greed and he blasted his ride with both guns in the head, its momentum only increasing on the blood slick its ruined head spilled forth. The deathly jailor was on the brink of its own death, though, and he rocketed forward off of its form, sure to plant his launching foot on it throat and condemning it utterly. Dante holstered his guns as his form barreled through the air towards the Greed, hand reaching up to grasp the hilt of his sword – he could take it in one swing with this momentum. The sword arced over its master's head, biting into the top of the jailor's right shoulder and continuing smoothly downward as though through hot butter. Its arm severed, the jailor screeched, the agonized sound sandy and guttural, before the sword veered to the left and its cry was split short by the splitting of its body into two halves.

"Nice kill, Sugar. We're sorry we're late for the party – there were some bad customers we had to bounce off from the entrance out back."

"Master, please leave these to us and defend your nestling and mate!"

"Yes, Master, we are more than a match for these weak excuses!"

The half-devil didn't bother to lecture Agni and Rudra about silence in battle as he took in the relieving sight of his Devil Arms. Beowulf and Cerberus, in their office-sized human and dog forms, launched at a fresh wave of the Seven Hells, white light and bright ice tearing into their foes. The forms were designed to be smaller and more capable of fitting in with the human world. They were not for holding back or restraining any of the raw power that the two demons were known to possess, and while Dante was usually a little upset with that fact when he had to take them on missions that way, he was more than glad of it now. Nevan's bats swirled around another foe, taking tiny bites out of it and driving it mad with the repeated sharp pangs of piercing fangs. It flailed against them, but the numbers were indisputable and the little monsters had soon ripped away the outermost flesh and were now devouring their prey whole-heartedly as it weakened under their assault. The succubus herself had dropped her human visage and was attacking at her own full strength, electric orbs smacking into enemies and turning into ensnaring lines that shocked the life right out of the demons.

As for Agni and Rudra, the pair of swords had called up simple ogre bodies to wield themselves, and each twin was whirling through opponents rapidly. Fire swirled on the red blade, streaming from the head's mouth and then ran along the floor, burning a line towards the bedroom door Dante had been defending earlier. The demons in the way fell aside, shrieking as their bodies were swallowed by the flame and devoured in its hot hunger, but the floorboards and walls remained untouched by the demonic flame, for which Dante was thankful. It was okay to hack things up in his office, since he broke a lot of things up himself, but burning the place down, swathing it in ice, or blasting it apart with wind, light, or lightning was not okay. And the Devil Arms control over their own abilities meant he never had to worry about losing that control when he used them. Not like Rebellion and Force Edge, where he had to struggle not to envelope everything around him in his own fire and electricity, even though it would certainly have torn through his opponents.

"Good to know! I'm lowering the sound block I put over Lady's room, so she can get her share of demon ass to kick!"

Vaulting over Agni's burned out path, the white-haired man landed cat-like in front of his hunting partner's bedroom door. The same head bowed in concentration as he looked for the thin thread of power he'd left to signal the spell, the one that he could pick up to begin tugging at the whole thing. Usually when he did a spell, he just left the whole thing open because he wasn't worried about anyone picking at them. Most of the demons that lurked around the city regularly didn't have the ability to undo demon magic and the ones that could weren't interested in it. He wasn't broadcasting his presence through his own demonic aura, but it was no secret either that there were powerful devils around his office, and besides, the demons probably talked too and so word had probably gotten around that there were two devil hunters in this town. Even if they didn't know exactly who or what he was, they still were smart enough to figure out that this place belonged to a hunter and to stay the hell away if they didn't want to get ruined faster.

He found the thread, finally, latching on to it and beginning to pull at the spell it was connected to, like picking the knots out of a string in the physical world. It was slow work and painstaking in the amount of focus it required him to use, but he'd felt it was the best course when the attack had first begun and he'd been…sure he could handle things, but unable to shake the nagging fear that he wanted Lady to stay out of the fight. It had been stupid, he knew that, but it hadn't stopped him then and if he was honest with himself, a part of him wanted to keep her out of things still. It had to be his demon instincts, had to be some urge to protect his mate and nestling like Rudra had referred to. _'Not that we're mates exactly or anything,'_ he scrambled to escape the ideas that brought up in denial, _'I mean, okay, so we almost screwed, almost. But that still doesn't make her my mate! That's not something she should be, or well, she should be mine, but not like that, not…' _the half-devil young man dropped the thread in distraction, swearing out loud when he did.

"Sugar, you fight, I'll untangle this messy thing you've set up. I can see Beowulf and I still have plenty of work to do with you on demon magic."

"…Yeah, sure. When this is over, then you can lecture me. It's not my fault I suck even worse at laying down spells when I'm trying to fight back a pack of demons."

"That is a poor excuse for a Dark Knight. Your traitorous sire could weave the most complex of demon magic in battle. You will learn to do this as well, Master."

Beowulf pummeled a demon into the floorboards that had been sneaking up on Nevan and she idly continued to hammer it with a powerful blast of purple lightning until it died, writhing in agony and the electric spasms her attack wracked its body with. Dante merely grunted, not wanting to discuss his father with either of his senior Devil Arms at the moment. He wasn't Sparda, he was Dante, and he would never be what his legendary sire had been, one because he didn't want to be, and two because he knew somewhere that he couldn't be. It was why Vergil fell, why he failed so damn often when he tried to save someone. If he was Sparda, he would have caught his brother, not just stood around gaping at his sliced open palm, and if he was Sparda, he would be able to save the world, not just struggle to save only the people in New York and the upper northeast.

But then, hadn't Sparda failed to save his own wife and sons? He didn't want that either, he grimaced darkly, crushing the head of the demon he'd punched out at bare-fisted. His hand came back to his side bloody and he avoided looking at it, not wanting to see what his inheritance made him, not wanting to wrestle with issues he kept telling himself should be dead and buried. His teeth flashed as he laughed brazenly at a swarm of Bloodgoyles flying straight for him, the pearly whites too numerous all of a sudden and the canines too sharp. Cerberus's left head sunk its fangs into a Greed, the right frosting over its coffin and the middle one snatching the demon souls it had called forth out of the air like a hungry animal. Snapping the body into shards, the icy hell-hound watched his master flash with wild red and orange electricity and flames. The wall at the half-devil's side began to smoulder, and the hell-hound bounded past the young man to blast it with his cooling frost. The heat of his master's strength seared him as well, but it was not something he could not stand yet, and he would not want the devil-triggering young man to burn down his own house. Agni and Rudra saw too, directing their bodies to maneuver the hilts so that they could see with their own eyes what he had leaped for. The pair of demon sword brothers were for once shocked silent as they too watched their master's control slip down the slope.

Dante didn't care, didn't even really notice the three stares, only was glad that Cerberus had served him well and was defending the nest itself. Weak, if it could not stand up to him, but then, wasn't everything here weak compared to him? He danced nimbly away from the Prides advancing on his position near the hell-hound, fire trailing in his path and they stupidly walked into it, burning in the unnatural heat. His flesh hardened, and red veins appeared along its blackened toughness, chasing down in erratic patterns as his legs and arms bulged and lengthened, giving him extra height. And range, as his right arm whipped out to strangle a Lust that had been chasing him, the black and clawed hand clamping down mercilessly and claws cutting into the back of its neck. It had been pursuing him, true, but it had also been out of his usual reach. He swung it around as more of the low-level jailors crossed his path, smacking them with their fellow's body, breaking both his makeshift hammer and the anvils he had swung it at with the sheer force.

Nevan looked up to see the half-devil she worked for disappear down the hall, berserk laughter following his form, almost wishing she hadn't just finished undoing the spell that was keeping the sounds of battle from his human partner. There were some things that she was certain the young woman didn't need to see about him, and this was definitely on the list. The young man had lost control around Lady before, but never like this, and the succubus wasn't too sure their relationship was solid enough yet to stay alive through the half-devil's insane rampage. Too late now, though, she knew, sending an electric arc through the ranks of demons behind her, doing her job in defending the nest of the devil she served.

Beowulf stood off to her right, pummeling the stronger demons without mercy and swatting the weak ones aside into oblivion effortlessly. He might gripe about having to work for the son of the traitorous Sparda, but he would never not do his sworn duty to his master either. And if the truth was to be told, he wanted to help Dante become a true Dark Knight and wanted to see if what his former comrade had seen in humanity was something real and not the delusion Mundus had tried to make them believe it was. It was one thing to be betrayed by your top general, but to be betrayed out of honor and a desire to preserve strength rather than out of insanity, well, that was a shame the former Prince of Darkness had not wanted to hassle with. Light flared from Beowulf's fist as he pounded in a one-two combo on a Hell Vanguard before smashing its skull in his left hand.

"If this is what passes for a strong demon, then truly the Underworld has fallen. Perhaps…" he grunted and smacked aside a handful of Prides, shooting them with sharpened light feathers from his short wings and goring them, not bothering to look at his fellow Devil Arms as he continued speaking after his attack, "Perhaps there is good in the fact that we no longer are servants to it. Such weakness is repugnant."

"Agreed, Dark Knight. Pups of my kind could chew these down to nothing but bones for gnawing upon later without much trouble."

Cerberus's middle head growled in concurrence with his fellow, the other two snapping at a pair of Lusts that were desperately trying to evade getting eaten. The hell-hound lunged towards the left one, snapping it up and shaking it until there was a sick series of cracks and he dropped the broken creature in favor of hunting down its fellow. He never got to break its spine, however, as a rapid rat-a-tat burst out of the doorway Nevan had been guarding and busted it apart into sand, under the succubus' raised arm as she brought around more lightning on their foes.

"I wake up to demons for breakfast in bed. Pancakes would have been sweeter, but this is good too." Lady methodically loaded a new clip into her submachine gun, checked the one in her pistol and disgusted with it, switched it out with a stronger one from her belt of ammo cases.

"Cupcake. Don't go looking for Sugar."

"Don't worry, Nevan, he won't die if I shoot him a few times."

"It is not that you would reprimand him for letting the nest fall under attack. It is that you would not like to see how he has responded to the attack."

Lady almost asked Beowulf for a better explanation with less Demonese, but she blew it off muttering 'whatever' irritably, and pointed her guns at a new series of demons. Most of the Seven Hells had been falling like flies under the Devil Arms, and almost as if it had been expected that this would happen, stronger demons had begun to filter up. There were a few that Lady didn't recognize, but then, she was certain there were plenty of demons she had never seen before. A lizard-like beast with a metal shield on one arm approached her and she blasted it with her high-caliber pistol as rapidly as the shots would click off, because the submachine didn't have the power she needed to push it back. The thing hissed and growled something at her, and another of its fellows leapt over to join it in sibilant conversation from where it had popped up from the floor, the hissing almost mocking in their tone now.

Like she had time to ponder what demons could possibly be saying about her? '_Not like I care anyway,'_ she thought sourly as she tore a line of bullets across their matching forms with her submachine before placing shots that would slow them with the pistol again, _'I don't care about what humans say about me, and I certainly don't care about what demons say!'_ The stupid things still weren't dead yet, but they were pouring blood off their bodies, blood that she noticed sent up steam and hissed as it came in contact with the floorboards. Acid, just lovely. She had mopped yesterday too, damnit! The demon hunter fired off her last few pistol rounds, then switched out both her pistol and her submachine for the .50 caliber sniper rifle she had on her back. The armor piercing rounds she had put into it should do the trick on these demons, even with the thick plate armor over their heads, and she fired off two quick shots while the pair readied to lunge at her. The first shot tore through its intended target, and almost as if shocked, the demon dropped dead with a last enraged hiss emitting weakly from its fanged jaws.

The second shot, however, missed its actual target and only grazed the right side of the demon's face. Angry at its own hurt and the death of its comrade, it leapt to the side as Lady fired another round, hoping to catch it unawares. Again the shot missed, and angry herself, she quickly tossed the sniper up in the air, whipping out her submachine and spraying out a line of fire that the lizard-demon did not manage to dodge. The shots peppered its scaled hide and more of its acidic blood dripped down onto the floor, but it continued for the hunter, suddenly leaping at her and she saw that it was bringing around its unshielded arm and the jagged blade it held. Nimbly, she back-flipped away from the first swipe and kept moving backwards, cart-wheeling to the side when it tried to stab her outright. Her sniper gun was coming back to earth from where she'd tossed it, and if she could get to it, she was certain she could place a killing shot this time.

_'Easy as 1-2-3,'_ she mused, crouching in both a feint of hurt and a preparatory spring, dark-haired head straight forward and mismatched eyes staring down her opponent's approach and timing her move, _'I do this for a living, I do it everyday, and this thing is just stupid enough to underestimate me…really too easy.'_ Hands that were planted firmly on the ground pushed up with all force she could muster into her wiry muscles and her legs flew up over her head, the combined act pushing her high up into the air over the demon's lunging head in a graceful arc. Her lithe body twisted in mid-air, and she landed more or less on her feet, planting one palm on the ground to steady herself, then sprang backwards in a flip and grabbed her gun when she landed this time. She brought the barrel up so fast the demon had barely turned before she was locked on to it, her red eye and blue eyes both hellish as she pulled the trigger and watched the demon's head spray out a stream of wine-red blood.

The two Blades fallen, Lady moved on to other demons, acknowledging with a grim smile Nevan's praise of her handling the two lizards. Cerberus finished mauling another Blade and tossed it aside, blasting its shredded corpse with ice to keep the acidic blood from pouring out everywhere and ruining the floors even further. It displeased the master's mate, he had seen, and so he would try to minimize it just like he tried to minimize the damage to the building for his master. Something about repairs being expensive, not that it meant anything to him. He leapt to the human woman's side, grabbing a Bloodgoyle and gulping it down as it appeared behind her. The dark-haired head half-whirled at the crunching, maintaining the other half of her focus on the Sargasso heads that had clumped up before her. Seeing it was only her hunting partner's massive demonic pet, because honestly even for all that Cerberus did talk and was intelligent like any other devil, he loved getting petted too much for her to think of him as anything besides a pet, she turned back to blasting her prey fully.

The heads shattered, and in their place a few more Blades popped up, accompanied by something dark, but whatever it was quickly disappeared, and she had her hands full with the lizard demons again anyway. It wasn't like her to let something slip her by, but she was well aware that the Devil Arms would never let her fall and they were surrounding her defensively. Agni and Rudra seemed to be enjoying themselves tearing into several Arachne with vigor, as the spider demonesses were inherently weak to the twin swords powers of wind and fire. Lady blasted away at the lizards, grinning when Cerberus' two left most heads froze their feet in place – how nice of him to set up the kill for her, she thought – and she blared two shots from the sniper into their heads, taking them out of the fight forever. Turning to focus on a pair of electric bats that she knew weren't Nevan's, the demon hunter was knocked off her feet by a rush of writhing darkness that went under her.

She recovered herself more than quickly, hopping up and cart-wheeling away from the inky blackness that she caught coming towards her in her peripheral vision, whipping out her Desert Eagle and firing blindly. Cerberus would dodge any shots that came his way, she knew the hell-hound was fast enough for it, and she wasn't about to let something attack her without firing back at it.

Beowulf came stomping over to her, grunting that she had best cover her puny human eyes unless she wanted to be blinded. She did it, grumbling about being called a puny human and seeing if he got any of the prime rib she had bought for later in the week, but glad that he had warned her when she heard a few of their opponents shriek in pain from the light show he had obviously put on. Opening them again at a grunt and the sounds of renewed attacks from the other Devil Arms, Lady found that Dante's senior Devil Arm was duking it out with some black cat-beast. The thing certainly seemed to be angry at him, lashing its tail and snarling viciously, so she could guess he'd forced it to expose itself with the light. She shot it a few times with the gun still in her hand, taking out one of its red eyes in a shower of dark ooze.

The thing snarled at her, and thinking it would lunge for her, she jumped and dodged to the side, only to realize too late that a series of dark spikes were following her. If she had run, she would be well away from them, but as it was, she was going to catch it straight up her body when she landed. Leaning to the side, she tried to kick her legs up and around her head, tried to use her falling momentum to flip to the side in mid-air, but there wasn't enough time, and she was falling fast towards the spikes. Nevan sent a flurry of bats after her, the dark swarm intended to catch the falling young woman but catching a swath of Sargasso instead as they materialized. The other Devil Arms watched helplessly as Lady fell, and she grit her teeth, glad that she had a gold orb. _'I'm going to need it bad, way too soon…'_

Something hot and hard caught her instead of the sharp stab she had been expecting through her body, something that clutched her to a flat dark surface rife with red veins. It set her on her feet after a split second, but it refused to let her go, thick brackets of heat wrapped firmly around her torso. She looked up, up past the dark wall of its androgynous torso and broad armored shoulders to its head, angled away from her and snarling with an open mouth full of sharp white teeth. Horns curled back and around from the crown of its head, huge and solid black in color, ridged and tapering down to cruel points near its lower neck. Abruptly it broke off its sounds with a last harsh utterance, somewhere between a hiss and a growl, tugging her into towards it with one arm while the other yanked up as if not made of bone and muscle, sending a searing red-orange fireball out. She tracked the projectile's path, watching as it engulfed the shadowy cat and the thing yowled as it was burned, trying to escape the flames but they followed it, as if moved by some power, and she realized with sick fascination that they were being moved, her peripheral vision seeing the extended arm flick lazily after the thrashing demon.

It wasn't even watching the thing die, she realized, sensing eyes on her and moving her own gaze back to look up at a face she recognized, even though it was grayed out and the eyes had become red slits lacking pupils. It looked back at her, unblinking, the face perfectly calm as it continued to torment the doomed to die demon. It was so unlike him, so strange for her partner to torment something so cold-heartedly, that for a moment she wasn't sure, and she voiced her wonder.

"…Dante? …You…you're, you're not in control are you?"

She wanted it to be that way, but at the same time, it was a thrill to think of how powerful he had become, the kind of thrill she got from hunting demons only better because she knew that all his danger was on her side. It was delicious for some reason and she wanted it, wanted to be on the arm of such a powerful devil…Lady shook her head, sure she hadn't been seeing clearly there for moment or two. Red had blurred her eyes, and she never ever wanted to see that again.

"Sugar, you should un-trigger if you want to keep both of you sane and healthy."

Nevan and the Devil Arms came up slowly, not afraid of him, but not casual in their approach, instead almost reverent. Dante grumbled something, lowering his arm to ensnare Lady fully again, the searing warmth of his devil body surrounding her and lulling her…she blinked wearily, mind running like slow molasses, she wanted to just purr and curl up in that powerful heat. But at the same time, she couldn't, she didn't want that, really. He started to let her go, then tucked her in again, all six fully-formed wings flared at his back and emitting a low buzz as the hardened top two scraped gently together. The sound was actually quite nice, she thought, and it made her want him, want to be with him in his strength, the strength that was hers too now…

"If you do not un-trigger, you will lose the little human to that which sleeps in her blood, weak a remnant as it is, foolish young Dark Knight." Someone was speaking, but why should that matter, all she wanted was him, was his power, now if only he would lend some of it to her…a nip here, a bite there, perhaps something more wild and then they could share that power, share it with their bodies.

Lady's dark-haired head slumped to Dante's still triggered chest, red eye dimly glowing before the lids fluttered closed over both, her eyes moving wildly underneath. Dante's horned head bent over hers, clawed hand pressing it firmly into his chest as he hissed quietly at her form, himself lost in what his mind told him was natural, was right. For her to want his power, to be entranced by the strength of her mate…no, that wasn't right. Lady might understand that he was half-devil and she might not be terrified of his demon form, but she shouldn't be seduced by it like she was now, shouldn't be clinging to him like a life-source. He jerked, and the trigger fell away in a rush, flame and electricity sucking back into his body like a whirlpool.

"Lady? Lady!" He shook her, not hard, but hard enough that her head lolled a little, falling back and to the left side, eyelids slipping open as if pushed by invisible fingers.

Her eyes were both glowing now, like he knew Arkham's had, like he knew the eyes of those possessed by demons of their own making did. He cursed, wanted to push her away from him and what he had done to her, but he couldn't let her go like this and he pulled her head back under his chin, murmuring her name, the one he had given her like a mantra. Anything to reverse this, anything to bring her back unchanged…had he warped her mind permanently or had the exposure to the raw strength of Sparda's power and bloodline simply set her off kilter for a short while? He was afraid of the answer. But he couldn't avoid it, and he stayed put, unable to look at his Devil Arms in shame.

She stirred in his arms, hands fisting and raising to brace her position against his chest. The top of her head bumped his lower jaw jarringly as she pulled back with him still resting it where it had been, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his pounding heart, and he watched her hesitantly as she leaned back with her eyes closed. Lady's eyes opened finally, and he was relieved to see they were clear again, normal in their mismatched color and not glowing with rising demonic power, just shining with irritation. _'Wait, wait, she's mad? She's mad. Oh shit, I am a dead man now. Although I deserve it, I guess…'_ He cringed, readying for the verbal assault.

"What the hell was that? Did you do that on purpose, mister? Did you think it was fun or something, making me climb all over you like some demon…whore…" Lady's eyes had gone wide now, shock taking hold as she took better stock on what exactly had transpired.

"No! No, Lady, babe, I wasn't trying to make you…I wasn't…I didn't even know…I…"

"Sweets, just let me cut in and explain a few things here." Nevan had stepped up to their right sides, pressed close as they still were. The succubus did not look amused by the cuddling she would otherwise had been teasing them about, however, instead it was one of the few times both of them had seen her face all business.

"This idiot clearly didn't know his own full power would make you go nuts, but then, we never did explain to either of you about what really happened to the priestess. I guess no one told that part of the legend, which is a pity."

The pair of hunters stared at her, Dante's right hand slowly stroking Lady's slender back rhythmically. That, she thought, really was soothing and she really did want to melt into it. Try as he might, her half-devil love was almost never publicly gentle or affectionate, always wanting to play it under his tough-guy act. She leaned into him, taking advantage of the rare moment as they listened to Nevan continue to talk.

"Sparda's power went into her when she was sacrificed and revived, and it has been in her bloodline ever since. It's a tiny amount, but it is demon power and it is going to try to make itself stronger if it finds the same type of power again. Normal Devil Trigger didn't attract it, so it seemed it would be fine if you were exposed to a higher stage, and that was our fault, sweets."

It took Lady a moment to process those ideas, to realize what had just been told to her. The power her father had possessed hadn't solely been from his own acts then, it had been something he'd always had and perhaps it had driven him insane. It was a terrifying thought, that she really was going to be like him someday, that it was inevitable that the devilish power he'd passed on to her would overrun her and devour up Lady as she was now. She wanted to clap her hand over her left eye and rip it out. Dante must have been stunned too, because his face had gone statuesque, frozen as his mind worked on the information he'd been given.

"You mean to tell me…that there's a demon…no, demon power that has its own will, in Lady? That it's trying to survive and that my power…my full power, is, is feeding it?"

"That is close to the principle, yes. But you are thinking of it as corruption alone, and it is not that simple. The power has lived in her all her life, and it is a part of her. It would not seek to destroy that which has supported it for so long without a better cause than simply empowering itself. It can do that and her mind still live."

"Right, because how much of me would be me if I let demonic power overrun me? I know what happened to my father! I know what I felt, what I thought just now! I know what will happen to me!" The dark brown-haired head jerked back angrily, spittle flying as red-pink lips went on a tirade against Beowulf's calm assertion.

The white-haired head above her own hid its eyes behind thick snowy bangs, hand stilling on her back as more thoughts sprang into the half-devil's mind. If she was already holding demonic blood in her veins, did that mean she would have the increased abilities of a part-devil? It was watered down enough that he could not even smell the faintest trace of sulfur from her, but perhaps it wasn't watered down enough to leave her entirely unaffected. She healed easily, got over illness quickly, and did do some things that he often found surprising given that she was only human. Acrobatics was one thing, especially since she claimed to have taken gymnastics all her life, but surviving huge falls off towers and being fast enough to outrun Lusts? Dante wondered silently, and a part of him nagged that this was a blessing, that he should be grateful she wouldn't perish as easily or quickly as his own mother had, but was it worth it if her humanity was lost?

The answer to that wasn't his to give, but he wanted to talk to her, wanted to discuss his thoughts and do it privately, where they could let it out as they pleased. Talking wasn't something either of them did well at all, and they did it even more poorly when around others and the topic was sensitive enough that he just wanted it to be them alone going over it. His arms squeezed her gently, halting her argument with his senior Devil Arm as they both observed the movement. His Devil Arms understood the movement for the signal of desired privacy it was, and they prepared to go, a bit too formally for his taste, but he wasn't terribly interested in that right now.

"Babe. Let's go check on Giselle and…and talk. Really talk. About us, about this, about…"

"About everything that's happened today? About what could happen and what we want to have happen?" She shrugged, slipping out of his arms and moving down the hallway a little ways to the room she shared with their half-devil daughter. The child had slept through the attack, she saw, surprise and then suspicion lighting her features.

"You did this, didn't you? Just like you somehow kept me out of the loop at first." It wasn't an outright attack, but the accusatory tone was still there in the brunette's voice as her partner sank onto the bed.

"Yeah. I thought…thought I could handle it myself at first, and then when I couldn't I still just wanted you to stay out of harm's way, and I knew you wouldn't if you heard the crazy party."

"And you did what to her? A spell, I know, but it can't have been the same one on both of us, or she would have been awake and shrieking in fright."

"It was a sound block on your room, because you were still asleep when I came to get her at four, but she wasn't, and when they attacked I laid a sleep spell on her." His fingers wiggled, red sparks dancing across the tips of fingernails and he watched as their daughter blinked and yawned, coming slowly out of her spell-bound dreamland. Lady scooped her up gently, cuddling the young girl to her chest and watching as Dante smiled tiredly at the sight.

She was tired too, she realized as she stifled a yawn in response to her daughter's latest one. Dante couldn't do it, apparently, as his mouth flew open wide to reveal a dark red tongue and white teeth that were just a little odd in their shape and size. His blue eyes blinked blearily after the gum-stretcher, clearing themselves just slightly of the fatigue hiding in their recesses. Her body sank down next to his on the bed, and she scooted close to him, resting her head on his shoulder. It jostled a bit but didn't dislodge as he wrapped the arm connected to the shoulder around her own slackly, kissing her hair sloppily.

"Talk later?"

"Yeah."

Today had been too close, and there were plenty of things they needed to sort out, but for now, this was all that either of them wanted, this peaceful rest with their little family. Tomorrow was another day, and they would meet it just like they had this one, although hopefully there would be less bloodshed involved so close to home. Killing demons was all well and good, but it was something else when they came to kill you, even if you smashed them up and sent them back to Hell while laughing. The attack on Devil May Cry wasn't something either hunter wanted to deal with again, but they pushed that particular fear to the backs of their minds as they laid down to sleep together, spooning and hugging their child with both their arms, a protective circle of family.

**&**

**Fuyuko: Damn, but that was good to write. I loved doing it, even though looking for reference of the demon forms that weren't DMC3 was torment. Fun torment, but torment.**

**Dante: You like the newest one, though, right?**

**Fuyuko: I dunno. I like the overall, but I mourn the lack of awesome Sparda horns. Where is the DMC1 Dante love?**


End file.
